The legislature panel set up to study the functioning of School Development and  Monitoring Committees, has ruled out their abolition and would suggest measures to improve them.
After a day-long interaction with representatives of teachers organisations, SDMC presidents, Education Department officials and NGOs, House Committee Chairman L Hanumanthaiah told reporters here on Monday that the panel would suggest measures to improve the committees’ functioning though the teachers would have them wound up.
The House panel was constituted in the light of the suicide of Prema, a teacher in Gadag district, following alleged harassment by a SDMC president.
Mr Hanumanthaiah said “the overall opinion among the public” was that the committees had served their purpose well. Following the setting up of SDMCs, there had been remarkable improvement in school infrastructure and increase in enrolment rate. Further, absenteeism among teachers had also come down.
The panel chief said even NGOs had suggested that SDMCs be allowed to continue. While there were 45,000 SDMCs in the State, the number of complaints received was hardly about 150.   The panel would also propose that more security to women teachers and greater representation to women on SDMCs be ensured. Of the 2.36 lakh teachers in the State, as many as 52 per cent are women.

Dress code
The panel is also considering a suggestion to introduce a dress code for teachers and a provision for sanctioning of leave for women teachers only by women members on the SDMCs.
It would also recommend the continuation of the present system of opening a joint account in the name of the head teacher and the SDMC president concerned for financial undertakings relating to the school.
The panel has already visited several schools in Gulbarga, Bangalore and Mysore divisions and will be visiting the Belgaum division on June 4. It would submit its final report by June 20, Mr Hanumanthaiah added.