CATs
CATs
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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. 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.