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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

As for hardware support, it is expected that the services will be provided mainly by external subjects and the division will ensure organization of their delivery. As for software support, the division will mainly ensure the operation of MEST’s local data network and servers (web, mail, etc.), installation and maintenance of basic software for MEST’s employees’ computers and general consultation services for MEST’s units in the IT area. B.3 Division of work between the MEST and agencies Agencies are executive, but operationally independent organizations within a ministry’s portfolio performing implementation and regulatory functions. Agencies are very common in education sector and they usually cover tasks such as curricula development, textbooks, teachers’ training and quality control (inspection, evaluation, accreditation). Decision about proper use of agencies requires understanding the appropriate rationale for their use, which is in proper division of tasks between the ministry and others - when the ministry is overburdened with day-to-day implementation tasks, it runs the risk of neglect of its principal policy and legislative tasks. On the other hand, it is important to notice that establishment of an agency may lead to higher costs and problems with clear accountability. Moreover, establishment of an agency without appropriate enabling environment for its management (including a degree of financial autonomy) is likely to be worthless. Current situation in Kosovo’s education sector is that the employees of the MEST deal with almost all tasks. Autonomous institutions are represented mostly by research institutes that are not even proper executive agencies performing tasks that should belong to such agencies (though the Pedagogical Institute could, in fact, perform such a role). Then there are organizations dealing with service delivery functions for the university/research community under the Prishtina University (Student Center, University Library). In majority of EU-6 ministries, the situation is different as the Table 2 shows. 8 8 The classification of institutions to the concrete areas is in some cases blurred so the figures in the table should be considered informative. 20
Table 2: Comparisons of agencies in education sectors of EU-6 countries and Kosovo Area Kosovo Number of employees Number of institutions Number of employees Estonia Number of institutions Slovenia Number of employees Number of institutions 21 Number of employees Latvia Number of institutions Lithuania Number of employees Number of institutions Number of employees Finland Number of institutions Slovakia development of education 99 3 154 2 365 2 99 1 development of research 88 1 23 1 18 1 56 1 general library 105 1 134 1 24 1 128 2 international cooperation 28 1 127 2 49 1 lifelong learning 22 1 research institute 94 3 259 2 82 2 statistics and analysis 130 1 vocational education 29 1 42 1 support of education 18 1 12 1 49 1 support of handicapped evaluation of education and 18 1 60 1 quality assurance, inspection 99 1 17 2 66 2 40 1 73 2 257 1 Total amount 199 4 304 6 17 2 441 9 63 2 926 11 914 12 The MEST is about to establish the Accreditation Agency as an independent organization and there are thoughts to establish the Centre for Evaluation of Pre-university Education as an agency. Although the decision about the Accreditation Agency has been presented as final while making the Centre for Evaluation for Pre-university Education independent is expected only in longer run, we propose to go through cost-benefit analysis in both cases. Otherwise, it can happen that the intended benefits from the independence of the Accreditation Agency can be considerably decreased by the costs of this step. According to its director, the Pedagogical Institute currently sees its mission as research in the area of pre-university education. On the other hand, the institutions of this kind in the education ministry’s portfolio in other countries (e. g. the State Pedagogical Institute in Slovakia) normally deal also with development of curricula and textbooks, setting standards and other practical development activities necessary for functioning of pre-university education. It is questionable whether research should be the main priority in situation where basic functions are not performed. Prishtina University recently became financially independent from the MEST by acquiring the status of budgetary organization (before, finances for the Prishtina University formed one of budget lines of the MEST’s budget). Surprisingly, the facilities serving for the university as the Student center and the University Library have remained financially directly connected to the MEST’s budget. Number of employees Number of institutions
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 and 18: Internal Audit In the small EU coun
Page 19: There is the basic IT support, whil
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

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?