A board which investigated the problems in SkolaSajf at the beginning of summer has reported that there was total chaos in the preparations for the summer school, and Roderick Agius’s position as CEO of the Foundation for Educational Services was untenable.
His request for a transfer should therefore be accepted
SkolaSajf started late last July and suffered a shortage of coordinators.
In its report the board found shortcomings in the management needed for proper project planning to ensure that the project was rolled out on time, as planned and on budget. There was no implementation plan that specified who would do what, how and when.
Right up to opening days the SkolaSajf, centres were not prepared. There were not enough coordinators and some headmasters complained that coordinators were arrogant with parents as they felt overwhelmed and unable to act.
There was also a shortage of material such as printers and first aid equipment.
The number of children has risen sharply, but this was known as early as May 28. Yet by the end of June only the applications for 19 out of the 63 centres had been processed. By opening day, only applications for 30 centres were processed.
Interviews for play workers in 2012 and 2013 were completed in May. This year they had not even started by then, despite a bigger number of children. The first interviews were held among University students in late June.
Then, amid confusion, play workers started to drop out and it was obvious that there was not enough time to train University and Mcast students, as used to be done before.
"In a nutshell, there was total chaos in the preparations for SkolaSajf" the board chaired by Paul Bonello, said.
Right up to June 28, heads of school did not know how many children there would be in their schools, and they could not sign service contracts with the FES.
By mid-June it was very clear that serious problems were on the way. Yet everyone acted like everything was in order, without checking the situation. It was the unions which raised the alarm, and they did well, the board said.
The first time that the Minister of Education was informed was on June 19, by the general secretary of the MUT. On July 5-6 the permanent secretary at the Education Ministry proposed a postponement of the SkolaSajf opening because the ratio between children and carers was not adequate.
The minister accepted the advice.
Matters improved over the following days and activity started on July 11. During that period, a team led by the permanent secretary effectively took over.
There was no doubt, the inquiry board said, that the CEO had major responsibility for the serious lack of preparation. He had also under-estimated the seriousness of the problems and misled his board, the education department and the ministry by telling them that everything was on track and in place.
The board said CEO Roderick Agius had not acted in male fede. He had not acted maliciously but lacked the training and managerial skills which his post demanded.
In other findings, the inquiry board said the board of the foundation was cut off from the actual operations of the foundation and relied on the information given by the CEO.
The Directorate of Educational Services was passive and assumed that its role was only to monitor the quality of programmes once SkolaSajf started, a very narrow interpretation of its responsibilities. The Director General had remained distant even when the warnings started being made. The Director-General just believed what the CEO had been saying, that all was well.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The board said the government should conduct a strategic rethinking exercise and focus on the strategic aims, operational efficiency and the monetary values of foundations, such as the FES, and their long term future.
It noted that while bodies such as the FES were set up with the aim of having more flexibility than allowed by the civil service, the inquiry board was not convinced that the proliferation of so many bodies had resulted in more efficiency.
In the case of the FES, more communication and coordination complications, including financial, had been created between the department and the entity.
But until the strategic rethinking exercise as was being proposed was carried out, the FES should continue with its work without unnecessary hiccups. So a suitable, motivated person with managerial experience should be immediately selected to be responsible for the continuation of services.
Unless this was done, even winter services would be threatened.
It said that while the future of FES should be the result of a long term strategy based on the proposed rethinking exercise, in the immediate term it should ensure that Skola Sajf/Klabb 3-16 for the year 2014/2015 would be a quality service.
Early planning was needed and preparations should start in October so that by February/March everything would be in place for the summer.
The board also remarked that coordinators should not be people aged 22 but teachers with experience.
The inquiry board noted that while some members of the FES board had offered their resignation, others did not. This did not mean that those who did were any more responsible than those who did not.
Moreover, the inquiry board found no difference in responsibility between board members who had been in place since the previous administration and others who had were appointed by this administration.
The board said the administration should ensure that when a managerial position was assigned, the person appointed had the necessary abilities for the post.
Successful teachers did not necessarily make good administrators or managers and it was a good and experienced manager that was needed to administer the ever-expanding Skola Sajf/Klabb 3-16 programme.
The board said that relevant experience and personal attitude should be given much more importance.
In a statement the Ministry of Education said it was evaluating the recommendations which had been made in order to avoid a repetition of what had happened.
The whole inquiry report can be read in the pdf link below.