August Activity – Know Your Local Government - The ACTiZENS' Club Programme by Desh Apnayen

INTRODUCTION

The local government is closest administration to the people. It is convenient for people to approach the local government for solving their problems both quickly and with minimum cost. But do we know, which authority to reach out, how do they function? Where is the Panchayat/Municipality constituted? Let enhance our understanding of our local government and its operation in our area.

The local government govern the administration of an area or small community such as villages, towns, or cities. It operates both in urban and rural areas of the state. The local bodies constituted for local planning, development and administration in the rural areas are referred as Panchayats and the local bodies, which are functioning for local planning, development and administration in the urban areas are referred as Municipalities. Through this activity let us understand the structure of our local government with a specific issue in our locality

OBJECTIVES

Student will be able to identify the structure of local government.
Students will be able to recognize the structure and role of the government in context to local issue.

OUTCOMES

1. Students will be able to describe the structure and role of local government in context to resolving a local issue in their own words.

SKILLS AND VALUES

Skills - Communication, Collaboration, and creativity, problem solving.

Values – Responsibility, care.

SESSIONS’ OVERVIEW

S. No.

Session Details

Estimated Time Required

Step 1: Introduction

Step 2: Group Activity

45 min

Step 3: Group Presentation

Step 4: Debrief of Activity

45 min

MATERIAL REQUIRED

Notebooks, pens

STEPS OF THE ACTIVITY

Session 1: For a 45 min session Step 1-2

Step 1 – Introduction

Time: 10-12min

Ask the students to identify from the given clues which issues/problems can be related to our local government.

Teacher can tell that every village and city should have the local government working in many roles like cleaning our garbage, collecting house tax, maintaining streetlights, etc.

Few Advantages of local government are:

1. Easily accessible to the citizens. They can directly go to the local government and raise the issues.

2. As they are from the same area, they have the local knowledge and expertise to cater to the needs of the people.

Teacher will tell the students that in today’s activity session we will know more about structure of local government in context to a situation of Water scarcity.

Step 2 – Group Activity

Time: 30 min

1. Divide the class into 4 groups. Two groups will work on Rural areas and two groups will work on Urban areas. Teacher can divide 2-2 questions to each sub-group.

2. Tell the students, today we will work on the Issue of ‘Scarcity of Water’. Read out the Issue card it is given in Annexure 1.

3. Assign the groups the Task to research the following questions in context to this issue with help of the handout given in Annexure 2. (Teacher can either create handwritten copy of Handout with help of students or take print)

1) Why do you think local government should solve this issue?
2) What can the local government do to solve this issue of Water Scarcity?
3) Which department/person is concerned with solving this issue?
4) How can you approach them? What is the mechanism or available options to reach them?

4. Tell the students they have 20 minutes to research about these questions.

Homework:

Ask students they can research further to find answers to the questions either by visiting local government office or discussing it with parents. They must present their compiled answers as same groups in next session.

If the school/teacher can arrange a visit to the local government office to find out more, then a few selected members from each group can accompany the teacher to find out responses to questions and get firsthand experience. (Optional)

Note: Please pre-inform the date of the next session for students to bring completed homework on the activity day.

Session 2: For a 45 min session Step 3-4

Recap: (5 min)

The teacher can begin the session by asking students to share their experiences of doing the Homework.

Step 3 – Group Presentation

Estimated time: 30 minutes.

1. Teacher will invite the groups one by one to present to the class. Teacher can first ask both the Rural groups to present, and then move to Urban groups. (It can also be done vice versa – it is teacher’s choice)

2. Inform the students that each group will get 4-5 mins to present.

3. Each group can display their findings on the noticeboard so that everyone can see it.

Step 4 – Debrief

Estimated Time: 10 minutes.

Ask students the following questions to debrief the activity - to share the following:

1. What have you learnt from the activity?

2. What did you enjoy the most about the activity?

3. What role can government in its existing structure play to resolve any local issue?

Reflection Sheets, Activity Report & Feedback Form

Teachers kindly fill in the feedback form, remind office bearers to fill activity report and remind students also to fill up the reflection sheets.