Strengthening school management committees: a framework for process and outcome

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the existing mechanism of school management committees (SMCs) and to propose an improved framework for strengthening its process and outcomes. In 2005, the Education and Literacy department, Government of Sindh decentralizes the administrative and operational authorities to school level in the form of SMCs. These committees have been vested with several roles and responsibilities in accordance with the objective of SMCs set in by government in assistance with different international donor agencies.

The purposively selected respondent that includes 35 stakeholders among which 25 stakeholders has been interviewed individually while other ten has been interviewed in the form of two focused groups consisting of five members each. The findings based on the interviews are analyzed using the thematic analysis. This study analyzes the formation of SMCs, roles and responsibilities of members, Allocation SMC funds and its utilization methods. The study includes the challenges faced by these committees in school administration and operations with their recommendations for overcoming such challenges. Some common challenges include limited financial resources, interference of landlords and potential people of the community, limited administrative authorities and lack of interest of government toward government schools.

The recommendations have been categorized into three broad themes: strengthening of mechanism, strengthening through functions, roles and responsibilities and revising SMC fund allocation and its utilization.

The study proposed an improved framework for strengthening the process and outcomes of SMC.