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

Introduction
This report presents results of the functional review of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
(MEST) in Kosovo and has been prepared by the FRIDOM project. The functional review focuses on the
administrative capacity issues in the education sector, reviews the objectives, functions, structures,
procedures and personnel of the MEST and subordinated agencies and as the result proposes
recommendations for improvement of the existing situation.
The process of the functional reviews is based on the May 2006 decision No 08/197 of the Prime Minister
of Kosovo to request support from the UK government (DFID) to undertake an assessment of central
institutions. In February 2007, the Government made the functional review and re-organization of its
administrative structure a key objective of its newly published Public Administration Reform (PAR)
Strategy and Action Plan. The FRIDOM Project has been launched in April 2008 and involves all
ministries (except for the newly created foreign affairs and defense ministries) as well as horizontal
business functions of the government such as human resource management, procurement, e-government
and others.
Most Central and Eastern European countries have undertaken similar functional reviews processes in the
lead-up to the European Union accession. As these experiences show, there is a high risk that the
recommendations from functional reviews done by external consultants are not implemented. Therefore,
Kosovo’s approach to functional reviews is that recommendations from reviews will be translated into
Strategic development plans (SDPs) of ministries by the relevant institutions themselves and also into
further updating of the Kosovo’s Public Administration Reform Strategy.
As a part of the review, the FRIDOM Team prepares an Analytical Report outlining options for
restructuring and capacity development of each portfolio. It also provides support and capacity building to
the line ministries, which are responsible for developing the SDPs.
The Analytical Report is structured into three major sections. Part A briefly presents the review findings
and recommendations with regard to the overall mission and scope of competences of the MEST, looking
at the functions, organization and staffing through the lens of the whole institution. Part B presents
findings and recommendations for specific departments/agencies. Part C concludes the report with a
summary of organizational and other changes as well as options for sequencing and implementation of
the recommendations.
The formulations of the findings and recommendations come from the interviews with the MEST’s
employees, from the study of documents about Kosovo’s education sector as well as the whole public
administration. The comparisons with the similar ministries of 6 small EU member states have been also
used to a large extent as well as personal experience of the authors.
Most of the findings and recommendations of this report have been presented and discussed at two
meetings with the MEST’s management. Feedback from the discussion has already been incorporated
into the text of the report. 1
The Draft Report was submitted to the MEST for comments on August 31, 2009. The MEST sent its
remarks on November 6, 2009. The MEST´s remarks contain brief description of a new MEST´s
organogram proposed recently by a MEST´s committee and the scheme of the upper level of the
organogram with no further details about its single components. As for the Draft Report, the MEST´s
remarks limited themselves to statements that the report´s recommendations have been considered when
designing the new organogram. Therefore, no changes in the Draft Report have been made and FRIDOM
team´s comments on the new MEST´s organogram have been added to the report as Annex 2.
1 There ARE a few changes in this report compared with presentations, particularly the establishment of the Administration
Department, which is based on the overall FRIDOM analysis carried out for all the ministries
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