Functional Review of the Ministry of Education, Science and ...

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units at the lower level, i.e. they are a division of a department (in 2 cases a division of the financial department, in 1 case a division of the PS’s Office). Just in 2 cases are there dedicated units at the upper level of the organizational structure. In case of the MEST, it is necessary to take into account the importance of current activities of the Division of Infrastructure in solving problems of school infrastructure in Kosovo. On the other hand, it is also important to point out that centralized school construction / procurement at the MEST’s level is not, in our opinion, suitable solution. Recommendation B.13: Devolve gradually the school construction / procurement to municipalities. Keep standard-setting for school buildings, prioritizing and policy setting in this area at the level of the MEST. As for the organizational arrangement of the investment unit, there are 3 options: to retain the investment unit in its current position, to establish the investment unit as a division of the Department of Budget and Financing, to establish the investment unit as a department. We recommend establishing the investment unit as a division of the Department of Budget and Financing by transformation and moving the Division of Infrastructure from its current position. The reason for this is that the school infrastructure issues will be of a priority in a short and medium term. But in the longer term the unit will take responsibility for the standard cross-sectional investment agenda of the MEST with regard to the education sector. Legal affairs Units for legal affairs in EU-6 ministries are in most cases (4) at the upper organizational level as dedicated units. When speaking about legal affairs, two areas need to be distinguished: legislation as the creation of new legal regulations, application of existing legal regulations. In some ministries, there are different independent units for each of the two areas. Recommendation B.14: Retain the legal unit in its current position as a department with main emphasis on legislative work. In case of need, establish a post for a lawyer in PS’s office. Planning and analysis Dedicated units for planning and analysis exist at 3 EU-6 ministries, 1 at the upper level and 2 at the lower level as part of PS’s Office and Policy Coordination Department respectively. In case of Kosovo, strengthening planning is considered as one of the top priorities. Recommendation B.15: Transform the current Planning and Analysis Office into the Planning and Analysis Department with the Division of Planning and the Division of Statistics. The Division of Planning deals with preparing and evaluation of all kinds of the MEST-wide and the education sector-wide plans in coordination with the corresponding MEST’s units. For these works, the division prepares also necessary analyses. It also provides methodological help to the work of policy planning for other MEST’s units. The Division of Statistics main responsibility is to ensure the functioning of the MEST’s data collection system EMIS and to elaborate MEST’s statistical reports and corresponding analyses. The division also provides methodical as well as practical help for data collection needs of other MEST’s units. Information technology IT infrastructure and data collection issues were discussed in the section A above, but here we present organizational recommendations that follow. Looking at other countries, special units for IT support can be seen at 4 of the EU-6 ministries, usually at the lower level of organizational structure. As mentioned already, improvement of IT support at the MEST should be a priority. IT support can be of two types. 18
There is the basic IT support, while special IT applications in individual areas also require specialized support. For this reason, it is beneficial to have both general IT support capacity and IT experts familiar also with the agenda in the corresponding area. Recommendation B.16: Establish the Division for IT Support within the Administrative Department. Recommendation B.17: Gradually establish specialized IT positions for each group of departments. Public information and relations Given the fact that a large part of the population is directly or indirectly among clients of the ministry (students, parents etc), public information function is a vital one. We can find dedicated unit for public relations at the upper level of organizational structure in all EU-6 ministries (in one case together with foreign relations). The unit directly reports to the Minister in 3 cases. Recommendation B.18: Establish dedicated Public Relations Unit as an office within the Cabinet of Minister. The Public Relations Unit would perform tasks related to mass media presentation of the MEST and monitoring of news referring to the MEST and education sector. The unit would also manage the MEST’s external communication in cooperation with the MEST’s units. Foreign (international) relations and European affairs Here we put together two related yet different areas. The reason is that at EU-6 ministries we can find units supporting both areas or separate units for each of them. The MEST has just established the Department for European Integration, Donors Coordination and Brain Gain. We believe it is important to incorporate the international relations agenda. International relations issues comprise tasks regarding international cooperation of the MEST, e. g. coordination and representation of the interests of Kosovo in bilateral and multilateral relationships and international organizations in the field of competence of the MEST, tasks regarding arrangement of foreign business trips of the MEST’s employees and visits to the MEST from abroad, tasks regarding protocol, organizations of conferences and seminars with international attendance. Recommendation B.19: Include the international relations issues in the mandate of the Department for European Integration, Donors Coordination and Brain Gain. General administration We can find „Administrative“, „Administration“ or „General affairs“ units at 5 of EU-6 ministries. In case of Finland using the system of big departments, the Administration department comprises units for most of the supporting areas. In the further 4 cases, smaller number of different areas (i.e. procurement, HR, documentation, operation, IT support) are comprised in these departments. With regard to the overall approach, based on the overall FRIDOM analysis carried out for all the ministries, we recommend establishment of an Administrative Department that would comprise these functions. In the area of technical services, assets management, maintenance, stand alone units in these areas can be found just in 2 of EU-6 ministries. Only in 1 case there is a dedicated unit for operation at the upper level (Slovakia). In all other cases, the overall units for general administration deal with these issues. Recommendation B.20: Transform the existing Department for Infrastructure and Technical services into two divisions - Division of Operations and the Division for IT Support – in the Administration Department. Transform the original Division of Infrastructure into the Investment Division in the Department of Budget and Financing. The Division of Operation should deal with all issues covered currently by the Division of Technical Services. Moreover, it would take care of asset management in accordance with the corresponding legal regulations (according to Auditor General Report not covered currently at the MEST). Accounting background for the asset management would be provided by the Division for Accounting and Payments of the Department for Budget and Financing. The Division for IT Support would ensure services necessary for functioning of IT infrastructure of the MEST as well as plan their development. The services would comprise hardware and software support. 19
Page 1 and 2: Functional Review and Institutional
Page 3 and 4: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report prese
Page 5 and 6: Introduction This report presents r
Page 7 and 8: have been assessed and reviewed by
Page 9 and 10: Chart 3 Chart 4 In terms of how the
Page 11 and 12: Based on this analysis, we make 2 r
Page 13 and 14: Recommendation A.12: Gradually add,
Page 15 and 16: iii) Division of special education,
Page 17: Internal Audit In the small EU coun
Page 21 and 22: Table 2: Comparisons of agencies in
Page 23 and 24: Pre-university Education Developmen
Page 25 and 26: Table 3: Lower level of the recomme
Page 27 and 28: Based on the new R&D strategy decid
Page 29 and 30: Annex 1: List of interviews Organiz
Page 31: Annex 2: FRIDOM’s comments on the

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