Role played by Staff and PTA of Madharusathu Sheikhu Mohamed Jamaaludheen (MJM) / Fuvahmulak in making the school a better place

Report written by:Arifa Abdul Majeed, Deputy Principal(PTA coordinator)

The students in the school are currently graduated from grade seven without ever seen or touched a computer in the classroom. The school is available only few number of computers which are generally used for administrative purpose rather than educational. In general teachers are not provided any opportunities to be trained in the use of computers in education, and so far ICTs are not included in the school curriculum. In order to this, there’s no capacity or maximum budget for the consultancy has been established at this time. As such this situation has been addressed all academic and admin staff’s are decided to donate their April month overtime payment for buying computers for academic purposes. Nevertheless, to have a complete holistic education the school must provide this facility and train the teachers in ICT.

Presently, this situation is being addressed though a private initiative, the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) taking the lead for setting up a computer lab in the school with funding from a private benefactor, community aids, business organizations, non-governmental organizations and conducting a fundraising program. Therefore, in order to achieve this objective PTA has decided to conduct two mega programs (dinner night and a festival or carnival) for fundraising.

The aim is to install a computer lab with a minimum of 16 computers, but there is no empirical evidence that the students will be taught computer skills while the school sets up a computer lab.

Every year PTA helps to oversee the needs and development of the school. PTA helps raise funds to provide a wide range of educational enrichment programs to the students as such last year PTA’s aim was upgrade library facilities. The money we raised last year spends many activities including transportation for teachers’ day trip, library books, library tables and sports festival. The following are the short summary of PTA’s fundraising activities and expenditure as at 2010:

1. 9^th April dinner night (total money received RF40,719)
2. Donation from business organization (RF11,400)
3. Upgrade library and purchased library books (RF20,348)
4. Purchased library tables (RF4,200)
5. Purchased flower boques for teachers on the occasion of teachers day (RF1080)
6. Transportation for teachers day trip (RF15,000)
7. Spend sports festival (RF900)

The school aims to provide a friendly, safe and conducive, environment that provides a positive learning atmosphere which fosters a good culture of teaching and learning. We are proud to say that we have not wavered from that vision and we are always one. Students are encouraged and expected to keep a healthy atmosphere for learning at all times. Students are expected to carry a good name for the school and this school is one of the best result producers in this province.