Civic Action Team

8 th CATs Convention 2009 for the Education sector

Background

The key concept on which the NPCC has built up its strategy is civic responsibility. It is considered as the engine of productivity to attain broader socio-economic development. If each citizen is made aware of his/her responsibility from an early age and internalizes the spirit of civism, these qualities would be reflected in all spheres of life, at home, at school as well as in the workplace.

What are Civic Action Teams (CATs)?

The activity related to CATs embodies two of the four Es of the NPCC, namely education and empowerment . CATs are encouraged to roll up their sleeves and tackle a problem important to them.

The Civic Action Team (CAT) is one productivity tool proposed by the NPCC for reducing and/or eliminating MUDA- all non –value adding activities or any obstacles to the smooth flow of any activity.

A Civic Action Team (CAT) groups 3 to 15 persons, who voluntarily meet at least once in a week for about an hour, to identify, analyse and solve their problems or muda. This tool for empowerment is an innovative adaptation of the technique of Quality Circles and may be used at the level of the family, the school, the workplace and extendable at community level.

Each member contributes his/her own unique talents. The team goes through the same steps that experts do: identifying a problem, analyzing it, exploring possible solutions and testing the validity of their assumptions and actions. The process is both interesting and beneficial at the individual and collective levels.

CATs can be described as

-a small group

-that performs Quality improvement activities

-voluntarily

-within the same institution

-carries on QC activities continuously

-as part of School Wide Quality Control

-for self-development and mutual development

-for improving personality and communication skills

-and developing a sense of social responsibility and global outlook

-with all members participating

 

General Information

1. Benefits of CATs in schools

The CATs' activities help to break down barriers that hinder creativity. Working in small groups enable students, teachers, non-teaching staff and eventually parents and people from the local community to bounce ideas off one another and facilitate a freer exchange of ideas. Some of these ideas can result in breakthrough improvements.

CATs enable people to undergo a learning-by-doing experience. They experience regularity and punctuality at meetings, discuss in a disciplined, fully participative and responsible manner (through brainstorming techniques) their problems based on facts and figures (not on perceptions), and propose solutions which can be implemented by themselves or within the scope of resources available.

Dimensions of quality in the school education

Quality can apply to whatever one does, be it producing a product, providing a service or studying and passing in an examination.

Total Quality, in the perspective of a school, is a set of principles and methods organized as a strategy with the aim of mobilizing the whole school in order to achieve greatest parent satisfaction.

2. CATs' approach to School Management

Two way approach through information sharing and trust

3. The CATs' Convention

The CATs Convention is an effective platform for teams from different schools to display their skills and projects and their potential for communication and innovation. Through case studies, role plays or posters, they highlight the benefits of CATs in the field of education.

The 8 th CATs Convention 2009

Time frame: March-August 2009

Theme

The 8 th CATs Convention will not have a specific theme. All teams however will have to select a problem/project that is linked to the school

Remember:

-A project should deal with a chronic problem – one which has been awaiting solution for a long time.
-A project should be critical to students, parents, teachers and the school management. Its solution should result in an important benefit to the school

- A project should be feasible and manageable (do not try to solve world hunger)
-And finally, the project results should be measurable

4. What is expected from the CATs?

•  The improvement has to be linked to the school

•  T he project should demonstrate how the problem has been identified, analysed and solutions implemented with the collaboration of other stakeholders .

•  The CATs should work together with other students, teachers, administrators, non-teaching staff, parents, people from the community to solve a problem related to their school and therefore bring an improvement in the school.

•  The improvement can be linked to the physical infrastructure or to a process or to the people forming part of the school community.

•  The team has to adopt the PDCA-Plan-Do-Check Act approach throughout the project.

5. Who can participate?

Any CAT set up in schools- primary and secondary (state and private schools) involving students ( mandatory participation of students ), teaching and non-teaching staff, administrators, parents etc.

The NPCC will not allow teams to present their previous years' projects from other CATs' Conventions. Any CAT presenting a past project will automatically disqualify itself from participation. It is very important that the team set up for the CATs project does not participate in other NPCC projects during the same year

The NPCC encourages the setting up of more than one CAT in each school. However for convention purpose, only one CAT will be representing the institution. The selection can be carried out after a mini convention held at the respective school level before the end of the second semester.

Depending on the number of CATs, there may be a selection at zone level before the national convention scheduled for August 2009.

6. Presentation medium

To accommodate a greater number of CATs and to give them the opportunity to use their creativity and imagination, CATs are invited to participate under either one of the following streams:

A: Case study presentation (with power point, flash etc)

-The presentation on a CD should be left at/ sent to the NPCC at least one week before the convention day.

-Each team is allotted a time slot of 7 minutes on stage

-Each team is advised to plan its presentation within the 7 minutes.

-This time includes the following activities: Setting up on the stage, presentation, questions from the jury members

- A warning bell will be rung after 6 minutes and final bell will be rung after 7 minutes denoting the end of the presentation. Upon ringing of the warning bell, the team should immediately round off the presentation.

The jury members have 3 minutes to ask questions to the team

-The maximum number of participants in the Case Study presentation should not exceed TEN.

-The team will have to produce a MINUTE BOOK and a PROJECT BOOK to the jury members before the presentation.

B: Sketch presentation

•  Each team will be represented by a maximum of TEN participants

•  Each team will be given 7 minutes including the actual presentation and the questions from the jury members

•  Each team will be given 2 minutes to arrange the stage (before and after the sketch presentation)

•  The participants are advised to use the least number of props. Only commonly available props shall be provided by the NPCC on prior notice.

•  The NPCC will provide hand mikes and standing mikes as per the requirement of the teams on prior notice of two weeks.

•  Marks will be awarded for innovation, acting, originality and dialogue delivery as well as for a good understanding of the steps to analyse and implement the CATs' project.

-The team will have to produce a MINUTE BOOK and a PROJECT BOOK to the jurors before the presentation.

C: Poster, painting presentation

- Each team will be represented by a maximum of TEN participants

-The participants shall work collectively to present an attractive poster on the project identified, analysed and implemented. Photographs, graphs, drawings can illustrate the poster.

-The poster should already be ready for display at the convention.

-The NPCC will provide soft boards as per the requirement of the teams on prior notice of two weeks.

- The poster will be judged on the basis of creativity, neatness, originality and analysis of the problem identified and solutions proposed.

7. Getting organized for the CATs' project

Step 1: January 2009

Sensitisation of heads of schools (primary and secondary) in each zone

Registration for the CATs' project 2008

Deadline for registration of school, team/s, facilitator(s) and project/s: Wednesday 30 January 2008

Step 2: Training of trainers: 30 January 2009

One day training of trainers i.e. facilitators that have obtained a Certificate of Competence in CATs by the NPCC and/or have been sponsored by the NPCC to participate in International Conventions for Students' Quality Control Circles (ICSQCC)

Step 3: Training of CATs-February 2009

Each CAT-students and facilitator from each school will benefit from a one-day training on the Setting up of CATs. The training will be conducted by trained facilitators in each zone.

Step 4: PDCA- Plan-Do-Check-Act – February-July 2009

CATs work on their respective projects-NPCC to monitor projects-

Step 5: Zone selection-July 2009

Selection of best implemented projects in each zone

Step 6- August 2009

CATs Convention at national level

8. Training in the setting up of CATs

The NPCC has set up an e-learning platform where all information and training on the setting up of CATs are now available. To access the e-learning platform of NPCC, the team/facilitator will have to register on http://www.npccmauritius.com/elearning to access the on line information.