‘Mahdia tragedy: a general systems failure’

Tragic and devastating though it is, here I am only indirectly concerned about the Mahdia school dorm fire and the tragic loss of life. It appears to me that the cause of the deaths was not the fire itself but the inadequacy of the macro/micromanagement arrangements to prevent and contain such eventualities. The result has been a great deal of buck-passing: the Ministry of Education (MOE) claimed that education implementation is in the hands of the regions and both the ministry, and the regional authorities claim not to have knowledge of critical reports the implementation of which could have saved lives. The public has been given a glimpse of a disorderly education system so let us hope that the promised commission of inquiry can decipher and present an explanation of how the system is meant to be managed, those responsible for what happened and more importantly, the way forward. 

When I was the Minister of Education (2001-2006) the extent management thinking suggested that government ministries make policy and deliver services: policymaking was the ‘steering’ function and the implementation of the ‘rowing’ function.  Traditionally (and Guyana is still very much in this mold), even when formal ‘autonomous’ state agencies exist the two functions have been de facto the responsibility of the same ministry and officials. The conflict of interests, inefficiencies and corruption that are possible by having the same policymakers deliver and then monitor their own delivery are obvious. 

To improve performance organisations must be focused and have clear lines of responsibility and authority: steering and rowing functions are thus decoupled. In various ways in its ‘steering’ role the ministry is expected to formulate and organise goals; prepare and monitor strategic plans; articulate the interests of public, private, and other social actors in the sector; establish participatory and consensus-building mechanisms and mobilise the resources necessary to carry out the proposed actions. The rowing task is usually left to separate autonomous agencies that must meet specific performance guidelines and be responsible for the consequences of their performance.  

In keeping with the above management thinking the laws of Guyana give the MOE the steering role and the regional authorities the task of education implementation. As Minister I thought that the more or less ad hoc and relatively thin oversight arrangement then in place was inadequate. If for example, the national educational strategic plans, that predated PPP regimes, were to be timely, uniformly, and effectively implemented, the MOE required accurate and timely information.  

After much effort, a press release on 11/05/2005 announced that an assessment was done on the effectiveness of the current system and the MOE had strengthened its monitoring tools to more effectively support the systemic reforms that were being implemented. The initiative sought to acquire information that would provide a more detailed insight into what was taking place on the ground, to take remedial action, to suggest strategies to inform policy, improve school performance and lead to greater accountability of teachers and officers.

1. IB: indicative benchmark; 2. BL: base line; 3. VIB_BL: variance between 1&2; 4 AT: annual target; 5. PAT=>IB: proportion of 4 to 1; 6. PAT=>L: proportion of 4 to 2; 7. QT: quarterly targets; 8. QT AA: actually achieved; 9. PQTA: proportion of QT achieved; 10. COQTA: comments on QT achieved; 11. AQTAA: proportion of QT achieved thus far; 12. COAT: comments on annual targets.

The monitoring team comprised the Deputy Chief Education Officer (Administration) who is directly responsible for regional policymaking and monitoring, members of the MOE Planning Unit, Regional Education Committees, Regional Education Officer, and a regional education computer officer (to help acquire and upload in a timely manner the required information and associated documentation to the desks of all relevant officials).  

In other words, in a ‘just-in-time’ manner the implementation of the above schedule was intended to provide information of what was taking place in the education system around assessed important issues of the day. The MOE is not the day-to-day manager of regional education, but it must be relatively well informed if it is to make appropriate corrective interventions in a timely manner. I am not claiming that then or now what was instituted in 2005 was the best arrangement, but with the institutions, visits, meetings, and reports embedded in the process something must have gone very wrong for the MOE to now claim that it was not in possession of critical information. 

The Mahdia disaster appears to be both a general and specific systems failure. An important task of the government/cabinet must be to ensure that ministries have suitable oversight arrangements, and it does appear that in this case no such adequate administrative arrangements existed.