The responsibility for ensuring that schools deliver the desired quality of education rests with parents and the local community as well as the duty bearers and school staff and administration.

In order to empower the local communities to understand the implications and provisions of the Right to Education Act, Bihar Dalit Vikas Samiti (BDVS) organized a two days trainingprogramme on 25 -26th May, 2016.

Capacity building was conducted at Barbigha, Sheikhpura district and the participants were from three Panchayats of Jagdeshipur, Samaskurdh and Sarva. There were about 30 people who actively participated in the training. Dr.Rev.Fr (Dr) Anto Joseph, Mr. Manoj Manjhi, and Mr. Rajkumar led the sessions.

As for the schedule, the group had different sessions like introduction of RTE[Right to Education],Group discussion, presentation, Empowerment sessions, as well as group formation for planning and action.

The training was conducted to so that the members of the Education Committees become aware about RTE [Right to Education] and widen their knowledge about the provisions and the applications of the Act. The RTE Act and the rules formulated by the State deal with issues such as School management, community support, infrastructure facilities, Attendance of Children, Teachers presence, Achievement of children and teaching learning materials and soon.

The purpose of the training was to provide the Committee members with information so that they could monitor and help to enhance the quality of education in the government schools within their Panchayat.

BDVS arranged for motivators to give a session on RTE and the role of parents and guardians. The aim of BDVS is to create a strong, sustainable public demand for quality education.

The training culminated with the formation of action groups, who produced a time-based plan of action. The next step would be to arrange for grade-based competency evaluation of the children.

This would be done through testing the children in their respective village through an exam to assess their learning levels. The results of the grade-based assessment would be presented to therelevant school administration, thus enabling the school teachers with credible baseline data, upon which they could assess the class-wise learning levels and take steps to improve overall academic achievements of the students. The exercise would also serve as a starting point for the members of the education committee and school management committees to begin a dialogue on quality education.