Is it too corrupt, or . . .Can Yemen’s education system by changed? [Archives:2003/685/Culture]

By Mohammed Mohisin Shatubi *
For the Yemen Times
Several years ago I wrote some constructive criticism about Yemen’s Ministry of Education. A few points have been taken to consideration, but the main problems have not.
Now, it seems to me, the ministry is going from bad to worse. I won’t go in detail about what this ministry is supposed to do, but I will try point out the corruption which is going on now in all its offices, starting from schools, local administration offices (MOE), provincial offices, and the base for the corruption in the ministry itself.

Schools
Almost 90% of the schools in the country have shortage of teachers, especially secondary and preparatory schools for the following subjects: maths, physics, biology chemistry and English. In Sana’a, more than 30 schools are without these teachers. Why, no statistics, no registration, no documents? Couldn’t they solve it before school starts. What were they doing during the vacation?
Books are not distributed according the requirement of the schools. Almost 30% of the schools in Sana’a only are without complete texts. Why? Who knows, the rest of the provinces might be without books at all. The shame is the ministry brokers are selling these books in front of the ministry at Tahrir Square.

Administration
The Number of inspectors from academic, financial, materials, administration, etc. There are more than necessary, almost one third of teachers’ numbers. And most of them are teachers and are unfit to be inspectors or supervisors, not professionals, just assigned through bribes and relatives. Can any body answer how or why they transferred to these departments, quitting the teaching profession? Just visiting schools, filling up forms, asking teachers qualifications, giving themselves big positions, they show papers from the ministry, from local administration office, or from Sana’a Educational office etc. unorganized inspection, just to show off that they are doing an important job. But they themselves don’t know why they are sent for and what their jobs are for. Of course the answer is with the so – called ministry.
This ministry has many assistance ministers. Deputy ministers, general directors, department directors, department heads, and so on. In addition, there are many councilors. At the local administration office (MOE) positions are in the dozens, but none of them solve the problems of schools, teachers, books, etc. They are just there for nothing. In some local administrative offices of the MOE, they don’t have office papers on the corner or inside the compound.
In some schools the number of administration workers are more than the teachers, some of them hired directly by the school directors, and some of them relatives for officials at the head office or local administration office. Many schools have many deputy directors, clerks, controllers, etc. All these people, especially at the ministry, instead of planning, organizing leading, properly just sitting, looking for income source, or how to help their relatives. The ministry has the collection of the most bureaucrats staff in this country.

Policies
There is no standard promotion policy, or rule for students. Every school director has got his/her own policy, has got his/her own people doing the business. Even teachers don’t know what’s happening after the exam.
Transferring teachers from school to without their willing. Interest, let teachers lose hope, demoralized looking for another job. Or change to private schools.
Many new schools, additional rooms to the old ones, have been built for this academy year to be used, but almost all of them are without desks, teaching materials and teachers. But directors and their assistants are already assigned.
The so-called teachers associations, two of them, of course never happened. Two associations for the same profession. Always create confusions for poor teachers by announcing different demands.
The new office building for Sana’a, which is the big agent for the corruption for the ministry. This office never ever will be changed, unless the old cows are changed with new professional, speciallized staff. Some of them are pretending as if they got upset because this time their financial and administration has been distributed to local administration offices. Most of them are just sitting there doing nothing. While schools are without teachers. Many department heads, without any job description don’t know what to do? All the jobs is done by one general director. Why? Who is responsible for these? Of course the so-called ministry.
As I said it before, changing of the dishes doesn’t make the food tasty unless you change the ingredients and cook.
Teachers salaries should be paid through the bank, or better find another safety means not the same process what the ministry is doing now.

Change from roots
As these are some of the problems at the ministry, I would like to mention again this ministry needs changes from the roots. And to this, I think all governmental officials, have to be involved too, especially the ministry of local administration, finance and generally the whole government. Man power is the most important part or backbone for a country development and this backbone is growing and strengthened by proper educational sectors. There will not be backbones means no man power, no man power means no development. If there is no development, the final result will be corrupted generation. So let’s fight corruption and corrupted officials. Especially at the Ministry of Education.
* Mohammed Mohisin Shatubi is an English teacher
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