What is Good Governance and Why Does Your School Need It?
Good governance is a set of responsibilities, practices, policies, and procedures used by your school to:
- Provide direction to the staff and children through a strong framework.
- Ensure objectives are achieved.
- Manage your resources so that you can deliver quality early childhood education.
How Will Good Governance Benefit Your School?
- More efficient utilization of resources.
- Greater participation by the teachers and parents in the continued development of the school.
- Opens communication channels between the school and the parents, and with the staff at school.
- Positive transparency to the stakeholders (parents, staff and other interested people).
- More Governing Body and School Management accountability.
- Cooperation between your school and Health and Social Development.
- When relevant contracts, job descriptions and the code of conduct are implemented every body knows what it expected of them.
Basics of Good Governance at School
- Have meetings:
- Form a Governing Body, Management Committee and/or PTA.
- Join the Forum or ECD Association in your area.
- Join the Rate Payers Association in your area.
- Manage your staff transparently, firmly and with empathy:
- Have prep meetings, acknowledge birthdays.
- Do Teacher Performance Evaluations.
- Resource Management:
- Generate (essential) resources for the school through the active participation of stakeholders.
- Manage and maintain the school building, kitchen, sickbay, classrooms, storage facilities, toilets, food, toys, stationery and furniture.
- Keep a record of resources generated from donors.
- Keep a stock list of everything that is in your school.
- Conduct fund-raising activities.
- Monitoring:
- Monitor the management of toilet cleaning, library, and other basic facilities.
- Monitor classroom conditions and generl classroom management.
- Monitor the arrival and management of the children.
- Monitor teacher arrival times and time spent teaching and doing other duties.
- Monitor that the daily routines, quarterly plan and annual plan take place as planned.
- Monitor the teaching environment based on the following:
- Child-friendly teaching.
- Use of various methods of teaching.
- Safe, clean classroom.
- School Policy and Guidelines:
- Develop detailed rules and code of conduct through discussion in the meetings of stakeholders.
- Application of these rules and code of conduct.
- Develop and apply a code of conduct for the school.
- Make available and maintain a complaint box
- Frame policies on professional development of teachers and preparation of training materials.
- Management of penalizing teacher disobeying those rules and code of conducct.
- Information Disclosure (PAIA):
- Implement PAIA.
- Disclose social and financial audit reports (if managed by a Governing Body).
- Disclose the school’s annual plan.
- Disseminate information received from the Departments to relevant stakeholders.
- Notify relevant stakeholder of school programs.
- Disclose decisions made at meetings to stakeholders.
- Accountability:
- The PTA is accountable to the school and community.
- PTA members, Governing Body and staff are aware of their roles and responsibilities.
- The Principal and teachers are accountable to school management.
- The Principal and teachers are committed to their jobs.
- The Principal and teachers are disciplined
- The children show a level of happiness to come to school.
- Stakeholders actively participate in the decision-making processes.