Education ministry requires reforms

There has been a trend in Uganda over the last 10-15 years that has seen traditional and government schools collapsing while private schools take premier positions in all aspects ranging from academics, sports to other co-curricular activities.

This has taken place at the primary and secondary levels and I can safely predict that it will not be long before it is replicated at the Tertiary or higher institutions of learning. The question is, how come that private schools that charge nearly the same or even less fees as the collapsing non-USE government schools perform better? The answer is simple - effectiveness of management and supervision.

The fact that the administrative setup of most private schools allows the school proprietor(s) to have a resident (full-time) director at school to oversee the work of the head teacher and other members of staff, makes it much easier to spot weaknesses in the system and fix them. This is not the case with government government schools that have “non-executive” board of governors that operate in a mostly hands-off manner. This gives head teachers the freedom to shape the institutions in their own characters, which is more often than not restricted by limited training and expertise in target-driven management and effective team building.

The Ministry of Education has also not done much to ensure that the board of governors and/or school management committees assume their rightful position in the administrative structure of schools. Head teachers are given freedom to nominate the names of their would-be supervisors (board members) to the appointing authority. This is where everything starts to go wrong. In the end, board members become lame-duck overseers as they cannot bring the person who brokered their appointment to order. This usually leaves board of governors/school management committees devoid of key skill sets such as accountants, lawyers, engineers/architects and seasoned educationists.

Besides, there is limited inspection and expertise in financial management as many school bursars are not qualified to handle public funds and practice accountancy as per Section 34(2) of the Accountants Act 2013. This provision of the law requires all holders of such offices to be Certified Public Accountants with practicing certificates issued by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU).

In order to address these challenges, I propose that the Ministry of Education to among others, ensure that the five nominees to the board of governors/school management committee include key skill sets such as certified public accountant, registered engineer/architect, lawyer, retired educationist/teacher/education manager and/or Scientist.