Only 3 private schools make it to top

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 11

Only three private schools managed to get a top rank in an evaluation carried out by the PGIMER under the School Health Accreditation Project (SHAP). However, no government school could make it to the zenith. 

JS Thakur, professor, Department of Community Medicine and School of Public Health, PGIMER, and principal investigator, SHAP, said the accreditation programme for health promoting school was developed under the World Health Organisation and Government of India collaborative programme in (2009-2011) and was first launched in 17 schools in UT. 

In the second phase, the project covered all the 204 schools from 2016 in Chandigarh. Schools worked on self-quality improvement for a period of one year with technical support from the PGIMER and reassessed from October 2018 to January 2019.There was a significant improvement in accreditation level of schools after one year of quality assurance interventions.

On the basis of performance, the schools were divided into five categories-platinum, gold, silver, bronze and below bronze.

Three private schools made it to the platinum category while no government school was able to figure in this group. In 2016-2017, no school was able to make it to the platinum category.

As many as 42 government schools (34.7 per cent) of the total government schools were accredited in the gold category. While in 2016-17, no government school was placed in this category.

Only one private school was included in the gold category in 2016-17. In 2018-19, 38 schools registered in this group. 

Five government and four private schools made it to the silver category in 2016-17. This year 42 government and 19 private schools made it to this group. 

The bronze level witnessed an increase from 15 government and nine private schools to 20 government and 13 private schools this year.

However, 17 government and 9 private schools still reel under the below bronze category. In 2016-17, 84.12 per cent government (92) and 53.57 per cent private schools (60) were in this group. 

Schools were assessed on 24 parameters, including access to adequate lighting, clean drinking water and clean toilets, sufficient dustbins for refuse disposal, presence of evacuation plan, monitoring canteens and meals in schools, option of healthy food and drinks in canteen, presence of social programmers and counselling services.

Prof Thakur said their objective was to assess and classify the schools for accreditation as health-promoting schools, to compare  health profile of students of higher accreditation schools with lower accreditation schools and provide interventions in schools for self- quality improvement.