Jamshedpur, April 8: Parents will now have easier access to school authorities to know about their child?s progress and also to put forward their suggestion for betterment of the facilities provided by the city-based English medium schools.

Tata Steel?s business excellence group, which has initiated the Malcolm Baldrige, a US model for performance of education in excellence, has taken a step forward in this regard to bridge the gap between the parents and the school authorities.

The group has asked the schools to organise parent-teacher meetings at frequent intervals for a better understanding of each other?s problems. The topic was elaborately discussed at a workshop organised at the conference hall of Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company?s (Jusco) corporate office here today.

Principals and vice-principals of about 30 schools attended the day-long workshop. The highlight of the workshop was the release of ?Tata Steel Education Excellence Model? by the chief guest Sumathi Muthuraman, wife of Tata Steel managing director B. Muthuraman.

The Tata Steel Education Excellence Model was prepared drawing inspiration from the US model. It comprised the core values and concepts in six distinguished chapters ? leadership, information and analysis, student focus, faculty and staff focus, process management and documentation.

Moreover, the participants at the workshop was also enlightened with the suggestions on excellence in education provided by Janice Fletcher, educationist and event co-ordinator for Georgia?s Leadership Institute for School Improvement, USA.

In an audio-visual presentation that stretched over two hours, Fletcher laid emphasis on four topics ? appreciative inquiry (a collaborative and highly participative approach of doing things), systems thinking (helps to understand and work within complex systems and find the leverage points for long term change), creating a balanced score card (a management system, which enables organisations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action) and joy of teaching.