MORE EVIDENCE is emerging that the level of administration and management systems at the Ministry of Education needs urgent overhaul. By its own admission, 90 per cent of the Ministry's budget goes to paying salaries, leaving only 10 per cent for the badly needed upgrading of physical infrastructure at many schools and to fund new initiatives to improve the overall education system.
Reflecting a specific aspect of a management disconnect between the Ministry and schools, School Board Chairmen and other officials attending last week's Gleaner Editors' Forum, expressed their dissatisfaction at the unilateral manner in which the Ministry allows some teachers with five years service to go on leave without prior consultation with the Principal and Chairman of the School Board. This in turn obliges the schools to hire substitute teachers whose salaries the Ministry is supposed to pay but has not in many instances. Four schools represented at the Editors' Forum were together owed over $25 million for locum tenens, an archaic term for holding the fort while someone is away, and which is perhaps indicative of the out-of-date management style of the Ministry.
If there is to be accountability in the system, there must be clear horizontal and vertical reporting lines so that everyone knows his or her area of responsibility. Unfortunately, the civil service and bureaucracy in general are disposed to dotted lines of co-operation. Unless these dots are connected, there is danger that decision-making will fall between the dots and cause confusion. Responsibility cannot be divided.
As one Board Chairman put it at the Editors' Forum, "We want the Ministry to respect our right to run our school". The issue of leave and locum tenens arrears are just the latest in a series of complaints that have come to light from discussions at Editor's Forums. Others have pointed to the disappointing performance of Education Officers in liaising with schools, and the frustration of principals at not being able with reasonable dispatch to get rid of under-performing teachers in the system. There has been almost unanimous agreement that teachers should be licensed but we see no progress being made in this direction.
We hope that the new Task Force on education set up by the Prime Minister under the chairmanship of Dr. Rae Davis will have the clout to get action for reform and will not become just another political weapon of mass distraction. It is now clear that any hope of improving education in Jamaica must start with how the Ministry of Education is run. And no amount of dotted lines can hide the Minister's personal responsibility for this.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
