Interrelaciones de los actores en los conflictos locales

Senior education officers etc. Ministry of

Education EducationalAdmin. long-term

PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION Asst. Senior Principal Under Sect. President's

Office Day to dayadmin of the

Ministry short-term PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION Personnel. Executive, Secretarial Ministry of Public Service Management of staff. Various secretarial short-term PUBLIC

SERVICE Financeofficers Ministry ofFinance Financialadmin. short-term

COMMISSION

While at the time fieldwork was being conducted the above fundamental change was awaiting the outcome of the White Paper, major changes in the Ministry had already begun in other areas.

9.6.2 The proposed decentralization and the policy to recruit graduates to Inspector/Education Officer post: new trend in management recruitment

A significant EPRC recommendation which has already resulted in developments in management training is decentralisation. It was proposed that managers at every level should be able to

supervise the whole education enterprise within the system. Whereas in the past a primary school headteacher who had become an Education Officer was not required to supervise a secondary school or a tertiary institution within his/her

district, the newly recruited Education Officers/Inspectors are expected to look across the board:

"In the past, secondary and tertiary education was managed centrally by the ministry. The new District Education Officers will be responsible for everything educational in the district and not just for one bit of it. In other words, we are decentralising the management of education. The outgoing people were basically primary school headteachers who were promoted to the post of Education Officer".

The partial implementation of this recommendation has already resulted in the ministry's new policy of recruiting people with university degrees and providing them with the necessary management skills. Recruitment to this category actually

started around 1984, but was made more systematic because of the changes.

9.6.3 Integration of the work of inspectors and education officers

While in the past, Education Officers and Inspectors were two separate groups, their work now was to be integrated:

"As a result, the most recently appointed officers are called Education Officer/Inspector. Their duties are, therefore, not seen as divorced from each other. In the past, the Education Officer's job was predominantly to manage mainly finances, and the Inspector's job was to manage things to do with the classroom. This arrangement made it difficult, the new role encompasses both roles, for which identical training was being given".

This will have important implications for the monitoring of change and training because, as a senior Education Officer explained:

"The changes in the ministry of Education will make it easy to monitor change programmes. For example, the curriculum has been changing very fast. Under the old arrangement, it was not the responsibility of Education Officers in the districts to follow up the changes

related to the curriculum with a view to monitoring implementation. These were in charge of Primary Schools only. Secondly school curriculum was the responsibility of ministry headquarters. Yet the latter would find it difficult to visit schools, to supervise* etc. The new cadre of district staff will be able to monitor the

implementation of curriculum change at all levels in the district, in collaboration with the ministry and with the National Curriculum development Centre."

This streamlining of the responsibilities of this new cadre is likely to facilitate identification of training needs..

9.6.4 Provision of a legal basis for change

An important EPRC recommendation was that the top managers of the Ministry should facilitate the implementation of the

recommendations by seeking a legal basis for them through Parliament.

This was an important change strategy. In a country where

Parliament has not existed for a long time, and where training was traditionally not a first priority, this was a departure from the tradition where most activities have been by military decree or presidential or ministerial directive, whose

influence ended abruptly with the sudden and constant departures after coups or other government changes.

Providing a legal basis through Parliament ensures a certain amount of continuity even when individuals or governments change. Furthermore, because the fear of Parliament seems to have replaced the fear of the military President, this might help ensure implementation, provided financial resources were available, and if there was peace in the country.

9.6.5 Training managers and formulating relevant management training policy as part of the change strategy

The EPRC proposed that because the new type of cadre were

going to take charge of the management of education throughout the country, as part of the complete overhauling of the

management of education, they needed to be systematically trained to take stock of all the changes that the ministry intended to implement. It was also a recommendation that, as far as possible, the training should occur even before the recommendations were officially out because of the need for a gradual but effective change process.

9 .7 Implications of EPRC Recommendations for Management Training

9.7.1 Introduction of induction courses and increased training activity

Interviewees reported that the focus on management training had already been accepted as policy in the Ministry. At the time of the fieldwork, in April 1991, a group of about twenty Education Officers/Inspectors had just been recruited. They had also undergone an induction course focusing on the new change. It was said that the induction courses had now become an established feature.

Increased training activity as a result of EPRC

recommendations was also reported. As a result of its

recommendations, for example, workshops had been organized to discuss, among other topics, the accountability of Education Officers.

9.7.2 The development of a policy on management training for different categories of managers

It was conceded that the systematic training of the different cadres as they move upward movement was not yet in place,

because current priority was on streamlining the management in line with the proposed changes.

"The streamlining is the first step, and we still have to work out the practicability of a systematic upward

development. But what is certain now is that to be

recruited as an Education Officer/Inspector, you ought to have certain minimum qualifications. For example, you ought to be a university graduate, have a diploma in education, taught for at least five years. Above that, once recruited, you have to undertake management

training, starting with an induction course. There has not been an established procedure for upward movement". This process of overhauling management, leading to the

relevant development of management training, supports the assertion in this research that developments in management training are evidence of the existence of a radical change programme.

As a result of EPRC recommendations the ministry is in the process of developing management training policy for Education

Officers/Inspectors. This is taking place, despite the delay caused by the parliamentary process, because a coherent

management training policy is seen as essential for the

successful implementation of the radical changes recommended by the Public Service Review and Reorganisation and the

Education Policy Review Commissions. A comprehensive programme of management training is also being developed for

headmasters.

Unlike in the U.K. Customs, where target numbers are planned and where the training is planned to cover the career life of groups and individuals in the executive cadres, in the case of the Ugandan Ministry of Education such programmes are still far from achieved, especially given the limited resources, the vastness of the education system, and the lack of training and human resource specialists to facilitate implementation.

9.7.2.1 The piecemeal development of training policy

The gradual development of training policy is amply described by one of the senior managers in the Ministry of Education who, when asked to what extent a systematic management training policy had been developed, said:

"There is an effort to put it in place. I would not for sure say that we have reached conclusive stages to

declare that policies are already in place. As you know, policy is an on-going process and we should not look at education in isolation from the rest of society. What takes place in other sectors, in industry, culture, finance etc. have got a bearing on us. Much as we would desire to develop our managers and to develop change, we are not, for example, the source of finding. The Ministry of Finance may say 'we don't have the capacity to meet that'. I think we are about off the drawing board, though often times we shall be going back to review certain

policies but I think a take off point has already been established".

Despite the slow nature of the development of the features of a good structured management training programme, it is,

nevertheless, possible to suggest that the beginnings of the structuring of management training for Education

Officers/Inspectors and to a more limited extent, for

headteachers, has been an appropriate indicator that a radical change process is at least being discussed and implemented, though gradually. This situation cannot be compared to

ministries like Industry where there was no radical change of the extent similar to that in the Ministry of Education, and where no coherent structuring of training was being

considered.

It is clear from the evidence that while the EPRC recommend­ ations were themselves acting as a further trigger for change, the recommendations themselves specify the integration of management development and training into the change strategy. The change has been facilitated by the support from the

government and the commitment of the top managers in the ministry to achieving the proposed radical change. The

commitment has included provision of resources including time. 9.7.3 Improved the status of training

The head of the planning unit, who is a member of the top management committee, and who was in charge of developing training policy, reported that training, and especially the new training policy, now receives attention from top managers and is often discussed at the top management weekly meetings which are attended by the two ministers and the two Permanent Secretaries. In his view, this was important and had

contributed to the success of the training strategy so far. This suggests how the commitment to change in the Ministry as a whole has resulted in the improvement of the status of

management training, both in terms of the seniority of people and the time spent on discussing it. As we shall see, with respect to the experience of the Uganda Ministry of Industry, it is much easier to implement changes in training if these have the full commitment of the top managers, and it is easier if the staff in charge of implementation are sufficiently

senior. This, however, will only occur if the top managers in question have the time necessary for devotion to the

implementation of the changes.

Figure 19 below shows some of the ways in which management training has developed as a result of the implementation of the EPRC recommendations.

Figure 19

Emerging characteristics of structured management training in the Uganda Ministry of Education as a consequence of the

Education Policy Review 1987/88 • Increased training activity

• Establishment of induction courses

• Streamlining management & planning management training for some cadres

• Ongoing development of management training policy for Education Officer/ Inspector cadres

• Improved status of training

Future research will indicate the extent to which such change will be successful in the long term. For the moment, from the experience of the Ugandan Ministry of Education, a change

model related to the development of management training in the civil service would need to incorporate as key elements the fact that for structured management training to occur, the change must be radical; training should form part of the

change strategy; top management must be fully committed to the change and participate in it; there should be some statutory basis for the change, to make implementation more viable; and that the development of the features of structured management training is a gradual process.

9 . 8 Other Facilitating Factors for the Development of Structured Management Training

9.8.1 The presence of special change projects

The overhauling of the education system, which had already started, and the recruitment of a new cadre of managers to take over the combined posts of Education Officer and

Inspector, coincided with efforts by the UNESCO to improve education management in Africa. Joining the UNESCO project later than did other countries, the Ministry was able to start on the implementation of some of the UNESCO recommendations

relating to management training for education managers, which had the same objectives as those of the EPRC's

As part of the special project, UNESCO was sponsoring and organising a series of courses to prepare people from

different African countries as trainers of education managers. Highly qualified senior officials in the Ministry had attended this training and, on return, had set about organising a

series of courses for newly qualified Education

Officers/Inspectors of School. This was said to be just the beginning of implementation of a policy on management training for education managers.

9.8.2 The seniority of people handling training

The trainers who received specialist training included the Deputy Chairperson of the Teaching Service Commission. Herself a former Minister of Education, holding a masters degree in education management, she had written several papers on education and the need for change, and her influence was important. Another participant was the Head of the Planning Unit, which was charged with the responsibility for planning and implementing the new management development programme in the Ministry. He has an MPhil and is personally interested to see that the implementation of the new policy actually occurs. The seniority of people handling the management training project for middle and senior managers is very significant because it shows the high level at which management training is being discussed.

9.8.3 The organisational and training review as a facilitating factor

The changes in the Ministry of Education demonstrate support for the conjecture that an organisation review is a very

important tool in bringing about change, provided it is set up as a result of a genuine desire for change and provided there is commitment to the outcomes of the review.

Here, the review was itself the result of intense public and government pressure for change both in the education system and in the management of education in general.

The changes in the Ministry of Education were not occurring in isolation, but were a result of an accumulation of criticism which culminated in the setting of the Review Commission, whose recommendations acted as a trigger for change.

9.8.4 Government vision

It was felt in the Ministry that the change process was being facilitated by the current Government's vision, stated in the "Ten Point Programme". This puts emphasis on training as a means of sustaining development. Implementation is likely to be facilitated by the fact that the changes that are occurring in the Ministry are a result of policy both at national as well as at Ministry of Education level.

9 . 9 PROBLEMS THAT STILL IMPEDE THE DEVELOPMENT OF