Promotions should be based on experience not interviews

EDITOR: By basing their decision on interviews, written or oral, when promoting headteachers, in total disregard of performance in the field, the commissioners suffer terribly from what is called "idiocies of bureaucracy." Headteachers are made in the field not in stupid tests and interviews in your posh offices in Kampala. Some headteachers have been managing schools quite successfully for a number of years. Quite a number have worked very hard, under difficult conditions, so as to have their schools up-graded to 'O' or 'A' level status. Now, instead of recognising and promoting these headteachers so that they are at per with the present status of their schools, the commission is saying that they failed some stupid test in a Kyambogo hall, which, test even the commissioners themselves could not have passed under the circumstances. A caretaker headteacher has been managing and developing a school in a remote area successfully. All people concerned; the parents, the students, the teachers and the general public at large are very appreciative of his work and yet someone sits in Kampala and says such a person has failed? You have never been to his school, and you have never assessed his performance, so what has he failed? I challenge the commissioners. Which one of you can go to a remote area in Kumi or Moyo and run a third world school there successfully? If headteachers also set up an aptitude test for you how many of you would pass? A person's output and performance should be the major basis for any promotion not interviews. Academic criticism does not necessarily mean real physical work or performance on the ground. The commission should change its method when dealing with promotions of teachers. It should go in for real substance, real work done and real performance in the field but not by merely going by interviews and empty academic criticism. Mercy Hussen, Iganga Ends.