JEDDAH — The managing committee of the International Indian School — Jeddah (IISJ) announced a series of programs and interactive sessions with parents with the objective of attaining overall improvement of quality and efficiency at one of the Kingdom's largest community schools. Addressing a press conference on Sunday, committee Chairman Mohamed Iqbal said the first session of its kind called "Together We Can – Parents and MC Meet" will be held at the Boys' Section auditorium on Oct. 28. "The program aims at listening to parents' suggestions for improvement and concerns regarding the functioning of school and achieving a further qualitative leap in their ward's overall performance," he said, noting that the meet will provide parents an opportunity to share their concerns and suggestions with the MC so that it can address all issues and effectively resolve them. Iqbal urged parents to take advantage of the sessions for the betterment of their children. "We would like to discuss with them their concerns as well as their suggestions so as to improve the quality of education of their wards. Based on this, we will conduct more sessions in future, apart from carrying out the necessary follow up work," he said. According to the chairman, the meet is one of the programs that the MC is carrying out in reaching out to parents. The MC focuses on consolidating the bridge with parents, teachers and students. "As a first step to connect with the parents, the MC installed ‘suggestion boxes" in the fee counter and main buildings for not only students but also for teachers. We also launched an email ID ([email protected]) for the purpose. Iqbal said the issue of the fourth campus of IISJ is now under the consideration of the Higher Board. The MC has submitted its report to the Higher Board and it is expected to take a decision on this in its next meeting to be held in Taif shortly. Syed Masood Ahmed, principal of IISJ, spoke about the steps being taken to further improve the quality of education. An academic meeting was held recently to discuss the steps to be taken to further improve the academic standard, especially in the backdrop of the poor performance of some students in the Grade X examination. At least 55 students, including 23 girls, were not promoted to IX this year because of their ineligibility to obtain the minimum mark prescribed by CBSE in SA 1 and SA2 examinations. Ahmed said there is an option to choose either the school-based exam or Board-based examination for X grade. "In school-based exam, 100 percent marks are in the hands of the school and most of the private international schools have preferred this. However the Kingdom's major community schools, including IISJ, have preferred the Board exam and this of course reflected in the results. "Though our analysis is that there has been drastic improvement in SA2 exam, the Board rule is that there should be minimum mark in SA 1 irrespective of the outstanding performance in SA2 for the promotion," he said. Iqbal and other members explained the steps taken by them since the new MC's takeover in the first week of June. "The MC has taken a lot of measures to improve the academic and administrative domains as well as the infrastructure facilities, especially hygiene and safety standards. All toilets have been renovated with setting up a janitor room at each toilet area. The gas supply to the Home Science Laboratory has been renovated by installing a central gas tank and supply network with proper safety networks." "Giving safety top priority, the committee revised the safety plan of the school buildings with adding emergency exits, marking the emergency escape routes as per international standards and the Civil Defense requirements," he said. Iqbal also drew attention to the moves to bring out VISTA, the annual magazine of the school whose publication has been discontinued for several years. "The magazine for the years of 2012 and 2013 has been published recently in five languages while the editions for the years of 2013 and 2014 will be brought out within six months." Iqbal said the MC is currently working on introducing effective ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software for the school management and GPS tracker for all school buses so that parents can take advantage of it, in addition to implementing a CCTV system. These reforms will be implemented when it receives the go ahead from the Higher Board. The MC members also unveiled plans to hiring experts for counseling of boy and girl students for the first time in the school's history. "The service of local and international experts will be utilized to lead quality improve programs for teachers and motivation programs for students," he said, adding that the committee has standardized teachers and staff requirements of the school, which has more than 12,000 students. It was said that the MC is working to improve the performance of transport mechanism as there are 104 buses operating to transport 7,800 students. The MC members also supported the suggestions from the media toward introducing reforms such as setting up of first aid support system, establishing direct access with parents with constant interaction via e-mail as well as seeking their suggestions to furthering academic excellence. The press conference was also attended by members of MC -Asif Rameez Daudi, Mohan Balan, Shamsuddeen Kokakodan, Majid Saleem Siddiqi, and Tahir Ali.
