Fostering Students' Overall Development through Practical Engagement

Ganga Biswakarma

State organs are state institutions or service delivery units of a state, which are responsible for good governance. State organs vary on the basis of the prevailing political system of a country. However, legislature, executive and judiciary are the three main state organs which are prominent in the countries.

The legislature is mainly responsible for making, amending and canceling laws whereas the executive body is for maintaining law and order in the country. The executive body has a primary role in implementing the laws made by legislative body. The judiciary, on the other hand, is responsible for ensuring equal justice for citizens. It stands strongly against injustice and ensures fairness in the state.

My point in this write-up is to distribute emphasis on the practice of these three state organs at the school level and to reason out how they assist students for their overall development. We all agree the point that the bookish knowledge is not enough to broaden a child’s mind and lead towards life and career ahead. That’s why we see schools offering several extracurricular activities. I also want to add this idea of practicing state organs at school level to the various extracurricular activities that schools are conducting.

Now, let’s discuss how the practice of state organs at school level can be organized and how they reinforce students for the overall development.

Legislative Body: As mentioned earlier, legislature is responsible for making law in the country and in the same way; legislature at school is to be responsible for making rules and regulations at school. Here the legislative body at school is called ‘School Parliament’. The parliament can discuss, amend and pass or cancel the rules and regulations of school (school law) as per their needs.  The meeting of school parliament should have to be conducted at least once a month where all the students’ related issues and issues of teaching learning activities can also be discussed.

I advise the members of School Parliament to come from class four and above. It’s nice to let the children below grade four be free from this sorts of responsibilities except the tasks which help them for their habit formation. It’s better to bring them to the responsibility gradually and also good to leave them free for learning from the older ones.  But the parliament members should visit classes Nursery - three as well to see if there are any topics or issues for discussion.

Each class from grade four and above can select members to the parliament as their representatives. My opinion is on a balanced mix of genders and around 10 percentages out of the total number of the students from each class. Teachers should allow the students to be free while selecting their representatives. If there are more candidates interested, voting can be the best idea rather than just nominating by the teachers. This provides the opportunities to the students to vote on the candidates who have the best ideas. Teachers will have great role in assisting the students on all these activities.

As with the state parliament, the school parliament also has to elect a speaker from the members who will be responsible to conduct the meeting. 

The practice of School Parliament provides very good opportunities to the students to speak out their voice and it also makes them responsible for making rules and regulations of their own. It definitely strengthens students’ intelligence, self responsibility and accountability. On the other hand, this can be a great place to talk about their demands and problems.  School Parliament can be such a wonderful site for the best democratic practice where we find democracy at the ground level.

Executive Body:

Executive body has been named as ‘School Cabinet’. There is no particular number for school cabinet. As per the number of the students and requirements, cabinet members can be different in number. The number of cabinet members also depends on the level of school, number of classes, educational activities and requirements you see. Just as the cabinet members in the country, the school cabinet members should come from school parliament.  School Captain will be the executive head of the cabinet. And he/she will have cabinet members to smoothly run the daily activities of school.

School Cabinet should be primarily responsible for preparing policy or system, educational programs and rules and regulations to submit to the school parliament. It is responsible in observing daily school activities, school progress, and things to repair and improve. Its prime job is to ensure the execution of rules and regulations made by School Parliament. This should also be an important decision - making body. It can decide on important issues for educational improvement through collective discussion. Cabinet members should act as the representatives of their friends and younger children in times of need and difficulties. They should act like the bridge between school administration and their fellow pupils. Cabinet members should act very considerably while at any situations at school. If any the critical point occurs at school, cabinet members should act very wisely to settle and manage. If they can’t settle, then it should reach the school administration and management committee through judiciary body.

Just as the state cabinet members, the school cabinet members can be given the responsibility of different tasks such as organizing educational activities and events, implementing and supervising discipline policies, assisting for learning environment, supporting a safe environment, coordinating and collaborating with teachers and administration, nurturing a sense of community and school spirit, monitoring students during lunch break, reporting any issues or incidents to the teachers or school administration, helping younger students with tasks or questions and so on. You can add some more tasks.

Practice of Executive body at school offers several learning opportunities to the students. This exceptionally fosters students’ managerial and leadership skill. Problems that might happen at school can be identified very quickly in time as the students can reach faster than the teachers. It involves the students in all sorts of school activities which creates responsiveness and ownership on them.  

Judiciary:

Judiciary has been named as School Court. This is an independent unit at school. School Judge will be the head of School Court. School Court may consist of at least Five to Seven members; one School Judge responsible as chief justice and there be other judges to support him. I advise maximally 7 members in the school court.

The prime concern of School Court at school is to be in dealing and settling problems and disputes related to the students. School Court should try to resolve the disputes that occurr at school and should be responsible to reconcile two sides at a point. This will have to ensure the role in maintaining everyone's liberty and right to have education at school. Just as the supreme court of the country, School Court is an ultimate unit to explain the rules and regulations of school. It is also responsible to preserve the rules and regulations at school. The students can file their complaint to the judiciary body if they are wronged or misbehaved by any other sides. So, this is also the place to make the decisions of curative punishments to the wrong - doers.

School teachers and school administration will have very great role to guide and equip the team members of judiciary body.

Practice of School Court at school enhances children’s abilities in decision - making skill and creates honesty and high morality on them. It also develops problem solving capacity on them. The best side of this practice at school is to create sense and sensibility on children generating community spirit. They become able to identify the problems and find ownership of their solution. 

In overall, practicing state organs at school can be very effective and productive project to enhance students’ managerial and leadership skill. It teaches them to be responsible rather than to obedient. This can be a huge learning platform to gain lots of ideas and skills through communication and collaboration. It is the best idea to generate responsiveness and ownership on student. This also enhances students’ language skills providing huge opportunities of communication and collaboration. This can be the best project to provide best opportunities to the students to generate the skills of critical thinking.  And no doubt, this is the best way to bring democratic practice to the base.

Teachers’ role to effectuate all these three projects at school level is very important. Teachers will have main role to guide the students and to make them aware of all the tasks and limitations. Their involvement for regular advice and guidance is essential. And I recommend the involvement of school representatives (teachers and officials) in the school cabinet and school court as regular advisors.  

Hence, the practice of state organs at school level empowers the students engage practically and fosters their overall development. This can be a marvelous project to set up a good culture at school.