MINISTRY of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD), Australia and New Zealand have discussed the National Education Action Plan 2013-2015 in Honiara yesterday.
Speaking at the opening of the two-day conference, MEHRD permanent secretary, Dr Franco Rhodie said the Mid Term Review was supposed to be held in May but due to circumstances beyond their control, it was postponed until yesterday.
Dr Rhodie said there was no better day to hold the evaluation of their NEAP 2015.
He said the objectives of the Mid Term Review are:
a) Review Ministry of Education’s performance against the agreed milestones for 2015, which is provided in the performance matrix
b) Review the recommendations made from the assessment of MEHRD’s performance of the NEAP 2015.
c) Evaluate on the strengths and weaknesses of the 2015 performance indicators. Do the performance indicators align to the key output areas of the NEAP? Or are there concerns about some of the indicators?
d) Review possible advice given on indicators for the next year 2016. In other words, what should be the Ministry of Education’s performance targets in 2016?
An independent assessor, Dr Halima Begum has provided an assessment of the Ministry of Education Performance – what was achieved and not achieved by the Ministry of Education.
Solomon Star understands the NEAP came about following a letter of arrangement signed by Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Ministry of Aid Coordination and Development Planning and two major donor partners, Australia and New Zealand in 2014.
Under the agreement, the donors will provide finance to key areas for the implementation of NEAP.
With the letter of arrangement, there are certain performance targets the ministry must meet before funding is available.
One of the targets is for the government to spend 22% of the recurrent budget on education to allow the release of $92 million from Australia and New Zealand.
Assessments had been carried out since 2014 up until now and after this, the ministry is expecting another budget from the two development donors.
The meeting ends on Wednesday.
By EDDIE OSIFELO
