Village Education Committee For Quality Education: A Case Study Of Ladakh

Abstract

Since Independence, the Government of India has been striving hard to involve the community more and more in the system of administration and process of development. A Village Education Committee (VEC) plays a group role to improve education through its functions. It assigns the greatest importance to the systematic mobilization of the community and the creation of an effective system of decentralized decision-making at the village level.  It is well known that a village education committee has great potential to run a school very effectively. Hence, there is a need to increase the potential of the VEC members toward their roles and responsibilities and to encourage active participation and contribution among them. Hence, there is a need to analyze the functioning of the Village Education Committee (VEC) in educational management in Ladakh. There is less enrollment, more dropouts in the government schools and most of the schools are on the verge of closing in the Union Territory of Ladakh. So, village education committee members can play an important role in solving this issue. The study explores the role of the Village Education Committees in promoting quality education in Ladakh. The overall aim of the study is to contribute to lasting improvements in the effectiveness of Village Education Committees (VECs) in elementary schools of Ladakh. Further, it will also discuss the various problems faced by the VEC members in promoting education. A sample of 104 Village Education Committee members from different villages of Ladakh i.e. Leh and Kargil districts was taken. The random sampling technique was used for selecting the villages and the purposive sampling technique was used for selecting the village education committee members. Data obtained were analyzed by using percentages. The study revealed that a big lacuna of cooperation was found between the Village Education Committee members, teachers and parents. However, Village Education Committee members focused that training should be provided to teachers and VEC members related to various functions of schools. The results also reflect that VEC has played a good role in the overall functioning of the school but needs to strengthen the regularity of students and teachers in school. There is also a need for the VECs to report educational deficiencies to higher authorities. The overall functioning of the present VEC members needs to be strengthened. It was observed that engagement in domestic works, lack of information in advance about the meeting, lack of awareness of roles and responsibilities, and low educational level of the members were the prominent causes of low attendance rate in meetings, particularly among the parents and VEC members.