Morning Assembly, SMC, Mid Day Meal now common

Shimla. There has been a major change in the education sector in Himachal. After getting permission from the state government, Education Secretary Rakesh Kanwar has implemented the cluster system in government schools from the new academic session. Detailed guidelines in this regard were released on Wednesday. The government has given instructions to make arrangements according to this guideline before the winter closing school holidays and the directors of the elementary and higher education departments have been made responsible for this. Now the cluster head of the primary school running within a radius of 300 to 500 meters will be the principal of the senior secondary school or the head master of the high school. The government’s focus is on sharing resources.

These schools will have to share sitting rooms, ICT labs, play grounds and even teachers if necessary. For now, reporting for teachers will remain under the current system, but overall supervision will be from the principal or head master.
The guideline says that all 1984 senior secondary schools will take their nearest primary school into their cluster. Similarly, all 960 high schools and all 1850 middle schools will take their adjacent primary school into their cluster. For this, the distance has been kept at 300 to 500 meters in case of stand alone primary school.

Cluster school will be called Model Composite Educational Institution. Cluster committee will be formed and school management committee i.e. SMC will also be common. There are instructions to conduct the morning assembly only, while the mid-day meeting will also be held at a common place within a radius of 300 meters. Earlier food was prepared separately for primary and high schools. If there are less teachers in the school cluster, then teachers of bigger classes will teach primary children and if TGTs and PGTs are not available then graduate JBTs will teach in high or senior secondary schools.

To implement this system, the Deputy Directors of Elementary and Higher Secondary Schools of the concerned district will hold a meeting within a week and resolve local issues. Directors of elementary and higher education will meet with schools every month to monitor the new system. All cluster schools will have to share their cluster sharing plan with the directorate. The School Management Committee will also prepare a separate cluster school development plan.