Teachers’ development not prioritised in TSC Le24bn budget -Finance Ministry

Business

The Ministry of Finance has questioned the Le24 billon budget presented by the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) over the weekend at the Miatta Conference Centre at the 2020 Budget Discussions. The Commission presented a budget of Le7.5 billion (Le7,519,361,150) for administration and support services, Le10.1 billion (Le10,147,897,323) for capacity building, policy and program implementation and for planning, monitoring and evaluation they budgeted Le6.4 billion (Le6,424,170,756). Principal Deputy Financial Secretary from the Ministry of Finance, Matthew Dingie reacted to the presentation, saying that he liked the TSC Chair Staneala M. Beckley demand that they should care for teachers which is the service delivery aspect. “That is why when I was looking at the budget I was ticking all the areas that relate to teachers development, but when you begin to do relative comparison with other internal things you are doing, that are taking more of the resources than what is going for the teachers then you begin to wonder where the priority is? These are the things you have to really balance” he queried.

The PDFS went on to say that going through the 2020 budget some of the figures are so quite high in terms of the description and what they want to achieve. “There is this initial assessment of the status of teachers and school leaders costing Le2.9 billion, what really does that mean and how relevant is that” he asked. On the issue of district registration and licensing of teachers which she says is critical, as a Ministry they want to know how they intend to go about it as it will cost Le 560 million. He also identified in the budget that there are lots of sensitisation program especially the one on Complaint and Arbitration Software with a budget of Le240 million. “I believe you have a program of engagement for the media to be passing on information as to the work of the Commission, so if there is a framework contract for that kind of engagement some of these things, can all go into it as progress on your activities rather than budgeting for sensitisation under each program and it is a lot of money” Dingie added. He stated that if the total budget of Le24 billion is all what is expected from government then that is a problem for the Ministry. “When I see systems development in the document and then you are saying the partners are also supporting you to digitise the recruitment process, I wonder where we are” he said. At this point Chief Economist, Alimamy Bangura asked the TSC Chair to provide them with information on the amount committed so far by donors and the line activities so that they will be able to compare what they have seen in the TSC budget for government. “If you read the Budget Call Circular we encouraged you to present everything here, what you expect from government and partners as the reason is that every stakeholder is aware of the intervention that will be going into the TSC” Dingie added. Bangura also identified a Le721 million budget line for overseas and local staff training whilst noting that there is none for teacher training. TSC Secretary, Sorie Ibrahim Turay then replied that teacher training is being supported by Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Dingie quizzed further by saying that the queries are related to the huge variance between the ceiling (Le1.843 billion) and what they have presented. “We just want to see the context and why the numbers are flying so high.” On the rollout of teachers Code of Conduct, Dingie said that the TSC says they have a functioning website, so why should the government spend Le720 million to roll it out. “If you want to send it by Whatsapp to all the 32,000 teachers it will not cost that, if you have the numbers you can also send to the schools head to distribute” he advised. Officials of the Ministry also identified a budget line of Le800 million for recruitment, deployment and transfer of teachers and another Le160 million for teacher replacement, reassessment and promotion, which Bangura says is the core mandate of the Commission. “It is just like the Ministry of Finance paying itself for paying government workers.” In her response the TSC Chair said that she had taken all the points raised that the budget is not really addressing the activities that they want to undertake. “We are going to go into every department to rearrange this budget according to our functions, like teacher registration, management and employee relations and also subsume under media, communication and sensitisation” she said. “I take your point that the budget is not really coming out clearly on what we want to do, please allow us to do it again very quickly so that by the time it gets to you, you will see very clearly and the donor aspect will be clear” Beckley promised.

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