Focus (Opinion) Of the Week - Issue 34

34 - August 21th thru August 27th 2000, Vol X

How Credible is Our Educational System?

COMMON SENSE
By: Hassan Al-Haifi
It is not the intent of this observer to use this column to highlight personal issues faced by the latter, or to take advantage of this commentary to further personal aspirations or ambitions. However, in most developing societies, and even in the most developed ones, one is bound to encounter certain situations that reflect general shortcomings in a system or system which the general public as a whole must deal with and find that in such systems are matters of equity and detriment to the welfare and well being of the general public at large, which are worthy of sharing with that public.
For developing societies, the educational sector represents one of the most significant service sectors, and the way it operates and the results it achieves are often considered the key indicators that will show the progress made in the efforts towards human development and general progress of the society. Thus the sector is, by its nature, has a pivotal role in setting the course for the development of a society, in terms of the output it produces, quantitatively and qualitatively, and in terms of the example it sets for other service functions to follow by its operational standards and procedures. More important, the educational sector also sets the kind of values that we hope will be engrained in the society to produce a healthy society in terms of moral persuasions and ethical standards of conduct.
Finally, the educational sector literally touches every citizen in one way or another, especially in a populous country with about half the population who are of schooling age. Because of the poor awareness on general educational norms that is widespread, one would expect that the educational sector should be applying above standard criteria in all of its operational and procedural systems, thus ensuring that the public is getting the best results from its children, for whom the sector is regarded as a guardian and mentor that makes up for any shortcomings of the parents, in view of this widespread lack of awareness.
The educational system in Yemen suffers from many flaws. In all fairness to the country’s educators, one cannot blame all these flaws on them, as the general state of the country is not fully supportive of an up to standards educational service and the scanty resources that are appropriated for this vital sector in the country’s development efforts are not reflective of the proper attention the sector should be given by development planners and those responsible for the allocation of the available resources of the country accordingly.
On top of that, Yemen’s educational sector used to enjoy significant foreign and regional support to bolster the sector’s growth and general operational needs and the generous amounts of funds and technical support that were once provided a decade ago have since been cancelled due to poor policy decisions of a government without any foresight or long term outlooks on the consequences of its hasty decisions based on emotional or narrow minded implications, that truly fail to take the interest of the country to heart.
Thus with all these circumstances, the observer should proceed with caution in criticizing the state of the educational system in the country, and would be unfair in purely blaming the overseers of the sector for the significant shortfalls of the system.
One of the biggest shortcomings in the general development approach followed by the government, even in times of plenty and availability of resources, has been a notorious disregard for the human resource development of the country. This is especially true of the educational sector, where our high dependence on foreign teachers at the start of the drive towards development, did not trigger a concerted effort to ensure that resources are channeled to ensure that this heavy dependence on foreign personnel, both at the teaching and administrative levels is gradually overcome, with the graduates of the system itself. Yet, we find that the efforts in this respect were minimal, as though our development planners felt that the country would be able to support an indefinite dependence on foreign personnel, thanks to an indefinite availability of funding! In fact, careers in the educational sector were not encouraged due to the lack of incentives and lack of proper career guidance that the system was unable to provide for one reason or another. Furthermore, vested interests had been allowed to set in within the sector that in fact worked against the replacement of foreign personnel hiring by local staff since the gains that were made by these vested interests were going to end, and a strong element of the corruption in the system was to be eliminated over time if the local personnel were allowed to take over the role of foreign staff, with the proper training and incentives. But the sudden stop of the flow of foreign support lead to a drastic reduction of the gains that such vested interests enjoyed and other means of lucrative finagling were needed to replace the appetite of hungry officials who saw no reason that their interests cannot be served by other means accordingly. We shall not go into the detail of the corruption to which the educational system is subjected to, for surely the Central Organization for Control and Auditing has volumes of investigations into this and anyone is able to look further into this, if they so desire.
Nevertheless, getting down to the nitty gritty, we come to the matter of the tests that the Ministry of Education prepares and administers to the students, especially for the secondary school general diploma. Here there is a great example of the inhuman nature that the educational system is characterized by and of the monstrous attitude of the overseers of these exams. For one thing, students are expected to be tested for all the three years of secondary education at the end of a journey as horrible as crossing the Amazon Jungle barehanded. Most modern educational systems usually go on a year to year basis, but three years that is really stretching the intellect too far, for students who have the poorest resources and conveniences of high school students anywhere. On the other hand, students are expected to hand in their completed exams and become subject to the results determined by Ministry appointed correctors, without having any criteria set up to ensure that this work will be done fairly and adequately guided by the highest ethical and professional standards accordingly. Of course, because of the total lack of transparency in the system in general and in the educational sector, in particular, these criteria are either absent or ambiguous and are not free of any questionable conduct, as one judges from the stories related by the students, which are really scary. Even if one should not believe all that is heard, but what is heard is enough to indicate that surely there can be a greater degree of honesty and regard to the laws of equity and fair competition among the students. What happens is that students who generally show significant academic acumen throughout their schooling, all of a sudden loose their status, either because they have fallen apart when taking the exam after so much cramming or because something went wrong during the correction of their exams.
Thus, this observer was taken aback h when finding that my son, who had been a generally high achiever (generally above 90% all along), was hit with a meager 79% total. Why? Because, in one of the subjects, he had been given only 58%. Yet, the boy insisted that the subject was one he had been sure that his result could not go below 85%. There is no reason not to believe that this could have been probably an honest mistake or a typing error, but there is no recourse for the students to appeal such results, because Ministry officials have declared themselves to be omnipotent and trustees that cannot be appealed, or objected to. But the truth of the matter is that there are students who hardly attend classes and yet come out with results that are in the 90s or are passing, when they have never passed the normal exams given throughout their schooling. Before we start hitting our kids for their lack of aptitude, we as parents would like to be assured that we would not be unjust to our kids, because some educators were negligent in carrying out their duties, or were guided by prejudice and mischief rather than fairness and the highest of ethical standards that are expected to be applied in this most important sector. Speaking on behalf of a number of other parents who have echoed some concerns as well as to the authenticity of the results announced, I would urge the Minister of Education to reinstate the right of appeal for the high school examination results, which is a constitutional right in all free and democratic societies. Our further support to education can only come if we are assured that the overseers of the sectors are seriously intent on applying the highest standards of fairness and conduct, when processing the end of a long journey across the Amazon jungle.

Judiciary and Press

Imad Al-Saqqaf
Taiz bureau chief
They say if sovereignty of judiciary is achieved, the state would be able to get rid of corruption. At the same time, if judiciary is has caught corruption, all official organs are bound to be contaminated. So, reform must begin with judiciary. The daily talked-about corruption, found in inefficiency of judicial authorities a good motivation to trigger off. Corrupt judges must be punished and removed at once.
What happens in courts is incredible and painful. Ignored and neglected cases, people in pursuit of justice for tens of years to no avail, are some daily pictures there. Many wronged people frequent the newspaper office appealing to let their call for justice reach the big bosses. In fact, press should be a voice for the voiceless. A journalist’s job is not only gathering news. He should be an advocate, judge, policeman and attorney general defending the wronged citizens’ rights to lead a dignified life.
We in the Yemen Times believe that press must be more than a source of news. We hope that the YT will be always an advocate for people’s rights and freedoms. Therefore, the wronged are welcomed to report about any kind of injustice they encounter.

Al-Murtadhi bin Zaid Al-Mahtuari

“I have no interest in the political and religious hypocrisy”

Al-Murtadhi bin Zaid Al-Mahtuari, originally from Haja governorate, studied Islamic law sciences. He founded the Badr Scientific Center and some other centres for teaching Islamic law sciences in addition to publishing a number of books in this field. “Politics dictates that it is prudent for the authority to concentrate on dealing with domestic affairs because the inside has much superiority over foreign matters by a very high percentage,’’ sheikh Al-Mahtuari said. He has added that the President is capable of taking hard decisions. He is capable of implementing them too, mainly due to certain characteristics distinguishing him such as his strong character, his command of the army, his long experience and shrewdness.
In order to enforce laws, strenuous work has to be exerted so as to control the self-directed interests of some corrupt officials. Whenever there are corrupt officials, the treatment will be more and more difficult. The price will also be more expensive.
Rectifying the judiciary system is another more complicated issue. However, it is not impossible to solve. There are some tangibly positive aspects that can be seen in the Supreme Court since the appointment of Judge Zeid Al-Jumrah who set out making strong and strict measures to ensure enforcement of laws. He defined the court’s members rights and obliged them to finish deciding the accumulated cases which were about 7000 cases. I also came to know that he had sent some judges for questioning and dismissed others. Therefore, if the judge is given the power to implement law and order and is protected against interference by the influential corrupt figures, I hope then that judiciary system of the country would have healthy recovery. However, it is impossible that there will be a complete recovery in the system.
It is first to identify the corrupt and then try them, punish them and recover what they have illegally taken away.That is, the authority should apply the policy of “Where did you get it from?”. This will be of great benefit for it would protect the corrupt themselves and rid the citizens of their evils and extortion.
So as to protect employees who stand against the bribery, we need to reconsider employment so as to choose the most proper person for the proper job. Employment should also be based on competency and not on any thing else. However, with this over-manned employment cadre and deeply rooted corruption that is spreading over all the dimensions of the society, one could easily discern the reasons that led employees to this stage of ignorance and disregard of laws.
As regards the chaos and conflict between the mosque preachers and some artists and writers, I came to hear about it, however, I have no interest in the political and religious hypocrisy. If the novel was abusive to the Almighty God, the authorities should have banned it.