Dy CM Sisodia launches outreach programme for parents of Delhi govt school students

Parents of Delhi government school students will get a chance to increase participation in their ward's education and learn tricks of better parenting with a new programme 'Parent Samvad' launched by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday.

Under the 'Parents Samvad: Let's talk to Parents' programme, over 18 lakh parents will be connected on a one-to-one basis. Every School Management Committee (SMC) member and 'School Mitra' will be connected with 50 parents in their vicinity.

They will interact with the parents once a month via a free calling system prepared by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR). Delhi government schools will seek help from parents to volunteer as 'school mitras' to bridge the gap between SMCs and parents.

According to Delhi government officials, the SMC members and 'school mitras' will receive theme-based training and they will interact with other parents about parenting and education on one theme each month.

During the conversation, parents will be advised on how to communicate with their child, how to determine what their ward is learning, what support should be provided to the child regularly and so on.

"The main goal of this programme is to connect parents and schools so that children can benefit from better education as well as better parenting. Parents can improve communication with their children and become more aware of their ward's education and wellbeing with the help of School Mitras," Sisodia said at the launch of the programme at the Thyagraj stadium here.

"More than 35,000 'school mitras' and school management committee members will work to connect schools and parents as part of this programme, which will benefit more than 18 lakh children in Delhi's government schools," he added.

On this occasion, Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, claimed that the 'Parents Samvad' programme is the world's largest and most unique parent outreach programme of its kind.

Parents of 18 lakh children will be directly connected to the school through this programme on a one-to-one basis, he said.

Asserting that there is a need to work on the country's parenting pattern, the deputy chief minister said, “There are three types of parenting styles in use today: zero parenting, over-parenting, and friendly parenting." "In any of these three cases, the child does not grow naturally. The Parents Samvad programme will improve communication between parents and schools and guide them in choosing the best path for their children." "During the Covid pandemic, concerns rose about how to properly conduct the education of the children, how to overcome barriers to accessing online education, how to support children in stressful situations, as well as how to increase parent cooperation in education. The parental outreach programme arose as a solution," Sisodia said.

He said that either the parents become bosses of children, trying to instruct them rather than guiding or the new generation parents try to become friends.

But children need parents, not bosses or friends. There are separate people to play those roles in their lives, the deputy CM said.

A pilot programme for parental outreach was launched in 40 schools in the eastern and south-eastern districts.

"The pilot programme was a huge success. It was discovered that this programme increased parental involvement in their children's education. The involvement of parents in school has grown, as has the scope of schools. It was also discovered that school dropout rates decreased and children's attendance rates increased.

"Even during the difficult times of Covid, there was a sense of optimism among the parents. Through consistent communication with School Mitras, parents devised novel solutions to a variety of problems. School Mitras not only assisted in locating children and delivering study materials to them but also in counselling them," a senior Delhi government official said.