National School Supervision Teams to be appointed: Ed. Ministry

The Education Ministry is to appoint special teams to monitor all national schools in the country, a senior ministry official said.

The new teams, known as “National School Supervision Teams” will report directly to the Education Ministry and will be tasked with monitoring the existing 375 national schools and 832 new schools that are to be upgraded to national school status by the Government, in the near future.

Each team will consist of about 15 members including accountants, subject advisors and construction experts. Each team will also have one officer tasked with monitoring whether the upgraded national schools have the necessary infrastructure needed for the school to be recognised as a national school.

These include checking whether laboratory facilities and buildings are up to standards, if there are any teacher shortages and if subjects are being taught comprehensively.

A team will spend several days at a particular national school, monitoring every aspect of the school, including whether teacher and student attendance is satisfactory.

At the end of their assessment, the team will produce a report which will be submitted to the Education Ministry’s national schools unit. The report will thereafter be forwarded to the Education Ministry Secretary for further action.

Based on the assessment made by a team, the Education Ministry could take stern action by transferring the principal of a national school if a report observes that he or she has not carried out their duties properly to ensure that a national school’s standards were maintained.

About three to four such teams will be deployed in each province. Some teams will inform a school prior to conducting inspection visits. Others however, will make unannounced visits to a school.

These teams will be deployed to existing national schools at the beginning of the next school term in April, the official said.

The Government aims to upgrade 500 schools to national school status this year. A total of Rs 7300 million has been allocated to the project in 2022.