Shape up! Headteachers to be assessed annually
NO more dillydallying. The Education Ministry has directed chief administrative officers to make primary school headteachers sign performance contracts as one of the ways of ensuring quality in Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools.
By John Eremu
NO more dillydallying. The Education Ministry has directed chief administrative officers to make primary school headteachers sign performance contracts as one of the ways of ensuring quality in Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools.
The decision follows the National Assessment of Progress in Education (NAPE) report, which showed that competence levels among primary school pupils had slipped from 40% in 1999 to about 20% in 2003.
The ministry attributes this drop in competencies in literacy and numeracy to a greater degree, on the slackness and lack of commitment on the part of headteachers and teachers in UPE schools.
“It has been noted that headteachers get engrossed in their personal chores such as running retail shops, farming, managing their own private schools or in pursuits at the expense of teaching and ensuring that the learner gets what he or she is supposed to get,†J.B. Semakula, the ministry’s assistant commissioner for personnel said in a report.
Henceforth, the headteachers, and eventually classroom teachers, will be engaged on yearly contracts and their appraisal done between December and February.
Headteachers, who fail to perform to expectations will face a number of sanctions, ranging from severe reprimand to demotion in rank and reduction in pay to retirement in public interest or outright dismissal.
The headteachers’ assessment would be based on enhanced pupil learning achievements especially at lower primary, effective teaching process, general school management, financial control, project management, school records management, school’s asset management and mitigation of HIV/AIDS in schools.
According to the proposed performance outputs, the headteacher would be considered effective if at least 75% of the P4 pupils attain the required proficiency in literacy and a similar percentage of P3 pupils the required competence in numeracy.
Effective teaching process would be evidenced by availability of teachers’ schemes of work and lesson plans and the placing of textbooks in the hands of teachers.
The general management skills will be judged by development of effective work teams, monthly staff meetings, work plan for supervision of teachers at work, community involvement in reducing drop outs, discipline and reduced absenteeism.
Effective financial, project, records and assets management shall be judged by proper utilisation of funds and timely accountability, effective construction classrooms and pit latrines, utilisation of school registers, availability of minutes from school meetings and the disposal of school assets in accordance with government regulations.
However, most headteachers and education experts doubt whether the performance contracts will act as the magic wand to the quality problems in the primary sub-sector.
Martin Isagara, the headteacher City Primary School, says there are a lot of factors that lead to poor performance and it would be wrong to blame the headteachers alone. “We have to look at the high pupil-teacher ratio, teacher motivation and whether all the stakeholders are efficiently playing their roles,†says Isagara.
Fred Kasule, the deputy headteacher Budo Junior School, says however well teachers are supervised, they can never perform to government’s expectation as long as the issue of remuneration is not addressed.
Several headteachers of UPE schools echoed the same arguments of huge classes, late releases of UPE capitation grants and meagre pay to teachers in UPE schools as the biggest drawback to quality assurance. The starting pay for teachers in leading private primary schools in Kampala is sh400,000 a month compared to sh130,000 for teachers in government schools.
While saying better pay may not necessarily improve output, Fagil Mandy of FAMECON, an education consultancy firm, warned that the scheme could indeed improve performance but could also backfire without proper monitoring.
“Today, you have a settled teacher who feels he or she is part of the education system. But contract may cause panic and make headteachers psychologically unsettled because they are not sure what would happen at the end of the contract. Nurturing a human being is very tricky. Contract is good, but needs a thorough system of monitoring and evaluation which I feel needs a specialised firm,†says Mandy.
Mandy said the current appraisal system has failed because the supervisors fear being unpopular.
“Whoever invented supervision knew human beings don’t want to work. I think there is general problem of (supervisors) not wanting to be unpopular. But evaluation is all about stepping on people’s toes. Unless we are willing to go that way, we will not go very far and you need a firm outside the ministry to do that,†Mandy said adding that yearly evaluation is too frequent and requires daily monitoring of the headteachers.
Teopista Birungi, the general secretary of the Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU) said by introducing the performance contract, the ministry was admitting it had failed in its supervisory role.
“What is the role of the school inspectors if they say headteachers are engaged in private businesses? Has government bothered to find out why these teachers and headteachers following that laissez faire kind of arrangement?†Birungi asked.
She wondered why the ministry singled out only the headteachers while the NAPE report raised a lot of other issues like parental responsibility, high teacher - pupil ratio, the use of textbooks, familiarity of teachers with the curriculum, lack of refresher courses and support supervision to teachers and headteachers.
NO more dillydallying. The Education Ministry has directed chief administrative officers to make primary school headteachers sign performance contracts as one of the ways of ensuring quality in Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools.
The decision follows the National Assessment of Progress in Education (NAPE) report, which showed that competence levels among primary school pupils had slipped from 40% in 1999 to about 20% in 2003.
The ministry attributes this drop in competencies in literacy and numeracy to a greater degree, on the slackness and lack of commitment on the part of headteachers and teachers in UPE schools.
“It has been noted that headteachers get engrossed in their personal chores such as running retail shops, farming, managing their own private schools or in pursuits at the expense of teaching and ensuring that the learner gets what he or she is supposed to get,†J.B. Semakula, the ministry’s assistant commissioner for personnel said in a report.
Henceforth, the headteachers, and eventually classroom teachers, will be engaged on yearly contracts and their appraisal done between December and February.
Headteachers, who fail to perform to expectations will face a number of sanctions, ranging from severe reprimand to demotion in rank and reduction in pay to retirement in public interest or outright dismissal.
The headteachers’ assessment would be based on enhanced pupil learning achievements especially at lower primary, effective teaching process, general school management, financial control, project management, school records management, school’s asset management and mitigation of HIV/AIDS in schools.
According to the proposed performance outputs, the headteacher would be considered effective if at least 75% of the P4 pupils attain the required proficiency in literacy and a similar percentage of P3 pupils the required competence in numeracy.
Effective teaching process would be evidenced by availability of teachers’ schemes of work and lesson plans and the placing of textbooks in the hands of teachers.
The general management skills will be judged by development of effective work teams, monthly staff meetings, work plan for supervision of teachers at work, community involvement in reducing drop outs, discipline and reduced absenteeism.
Effective financial, project, records and assets management shall be judged by proper utilisation of funds and timely accountability, effective construction classrooms and pit latrines, utilisation of school registers, availability of minutes from school meetings and the disposal of school assets in accordance with government regulations.
However, most headteachers and education experts doubt whether the performance contracts will act as the magic wand to the quality problems in the primary sub-sector.
Martin Isagara, the headteacher City Primary School, says there are a lot of factors that lead to poor performance and it would be wrong to blame the headteachers alone. “We have to look at the high pupil-teacher ratio, teacher motivation and whether all the stakeholders are efficiently playing their roles,†says Isagara.
Fred Kasule, the deputy headteacher Budo Junior School, says however well teachers are supervised, they can never perform to government’s expectation as long as the issue of remuneration is not addressed.
Several headteachers of UPE schools echoed the same arguments of huge classes, late releases of UPE capitation grants and meagre pay to teachers in UPE schools as the biggest drawback to quality assurance. The starting pay for teachers in leading private primary schools in Kampala is sh400,000 a month compared to sh130,000 for teachers in government schools.
While saying better pay may not necessarily improve output, Fagil Mandy of FAMECON, an education consultancy firm, warned that the scheme could indeed improve performance but could also backfire without proper monitoring.
“Today, you have a settled teacher who feels he or she is part of the education system. But contract may cause panic and make headteachers psychologically unsettled because they are not sure what would happen at the end of the contract. Nurturing a human being is very tricky. Contract is good, but needs a thorough system of monitoring and evaluation which I feel needs a specialised firm,†says Mandy.
Mandy said the current appraisal system has failed because the supervisors fear being unpopular.
“Whoever invented supervision knew human beings don’t want to work. I think there is general problem of (supervisors) not wanting to be unpopular. But evaluation is all about stepping on people’s toes. Unless we are willing to go that way, we will not go very far and you need a firm outside the ministry to do that,†Mandy said adding that yearly evaluation is too frequent and requires daily monitoring of the headteachers.
Teopista Birungi, the general secretary of the Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU) said by introducing the performance contract, the ministry was admitting it had failed in its supervisory role.
“What is the role of the school inspectors if they say headteachers are engaged in private businesses? Has government bothered to find out why these teachers and headteachers following that laissez faire kind of arrangement?†Birungi asked.
She wondered why the ministry singled out only the headteachers while the NAPE report raised a lot of other issues like parental responsibility, high teacher - pupil ratio, the use of textbooks, familiarity of teachers with the curriculum, lack of refresher courses and support supervision to teachers and headteachers.