22 Sep 2019

Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Basic Education (MoBE), Ms Bridget John says the ministry would undergo several reforms to improve efficiency.

 In her meeting with school heads, deputy school heads and Principal Education Officers for the Ghanzi region recently, Ms John said they had taken a decision to review the ministry’s organisational structure.

She said, they were still waiting for government re-organisation at the high level.

Ms John said they would review  jobs and avoid overlaps as reporting would  become clearer, stressing that it was important to improve the learning environment, embrace and integrate ICT in teaching and learning as well as to deliver quality education, which is relevant and inclusive.

Ms John urged the leadership to optimise resources, adding that the ministry should not run parallel systems.

She said the leadership should be accountable for their schools, be it maintenance, staffing or discipline.

“This is something we are working on with the employer, so that we can have meaningful decentralisation,” she said.

“It makes us inefficient when decisions that should be made in schools are either referred to the region or worse, to the headquarters. We have about 38 000 employees and if every decision is referred to the Permanent Secretary’s office, do you think that the PS can be productive? Worse still, our processes remain manual and we are not even defined, we have a lot to do in the ministry to deliver to the nation,” she said.

Ms John said they would be reengineering and automating their processes as well as pushing for decentralisation, calling for accountability and emphasising on good governance.

She challenged on them to manage conflict in their work places for productivity, stressing that ‘rank does not matter. We are all human, which does not guarantee one to give others third degree treatment’.

She said the transfer as well as the housing policy were being reviewing, regretting that teaching staff houses were now occupied by support staff.

She emphasised the need for   ‘clarity and align expectations’.

She said they are also reviewing the establishment register to address over and under staffing challenges. Ends