South Sudan Gov’t should allocate enough resources to educational sector
For the Republic of South Sudan to have quality and relevant education, the government should allocate enough resources of all sorts to education sector.
By Ustaz Mabior Rioc Manyang, Juba, South Sudan
November 29, 2015 (SSB) —- Resources are defined by Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English as “the means, money, property and skills that are available to someone or an institution for the purpose of achieving specified objectives”. By resources, I am referring to learning facilities, materials and personal factors such as qualifications and experiences. These resources are known as educational resources in the education context and are classified as financial, human, or material resources. The allocated funds are used for meeting teachers’ and administrators’ salaries, providing teaching and learning materials to schools as well as the training and professional development of teachers, teacher residential facilities, administration and maintenance of buildings and facilities.
However, the human resources include teachers, school inspectors, and administrators and the non-teaching staff. It is the quantity and quality of the human resources that determine and enhance the quality of teaching and learning. The rational allocation of these resources to different parts of a country is therefore, a central function of the National Ministry of education, Science and Technology through the approved budget by the government. The Ministry should ensure that there is some equity in the distribution of qualified and non-qualified teaching and supervisory personnel to states and schools. This ensures that no one area develops at the expense of the others as far as education is concerned. In terms of material resources at the Ministry level, they include all the equipment, buildings and even vehicles that are purchased and maintained in order to assist schools in their teaching and learning function. These must also be equitably allocated to states and schools in order to reduce inequalities and inequities among communities in the country.
Here I go with the brief definition of resources and the allocation of a resource. In order to have a full understanding of resource distribution and allocation, it is better to be familiar with the meaning of the words ‘resources’ and ‘allocation’. Perhaps you might have read and heard about these words before in the context of passing and approving the fiscal financial year budget of the country. Before you relate the two words together, here is the classified definition of resource allocation. However, allocation is derived from the verb allocate, meaning to decide officially that a particular amount of resources be given to or used for a particular purpose. In the context of this unit therefore, resource allocation refers to the resources that governments, local authorities and schools make available for the purpose of achieving educational goals and objectives. The ultimate consumers or beneficiaries of these resources are the learners and the society as a whole.
As all of us are aware that the central government allocates huge sums of money to the Ministry of Education to use in its mandate of educating the country’s children. Other ministries also allocate funds to carry out their own national mandates or responsibilities. The central government allocates financial resources yearly to various ministries in what is popularly known as the fiscal year Budget. Once the Ministry has received its share of financial resources from the central government, it has to distribute them rationally to its various divisions or States’ Ministries of education with specific responsibilities for the implementation of educational goals and objectives. Each State in turn allocates its share to its various components for utilization, and the process continues until it reaches the teaching and learning experiences at the school and classroom levels.
The local authority can be a recipient of government financial resources and can also generate its own resources through taxes and court fines and allocate them to schools under its care or jurisdiction. Rural and urban councils as well as county education officers are the authorities with this responsibility. The most important resource they allocate to schools is land on which the school buildings and playgrounds are situated. A local authority can also allocate money to individual schools for infrastructural facilities such as classrooms, laboratories, libraries and textbooks which are the most requisites badly needed for learning process. This is done in order to facilitate the teaching and learning process at the school and classroom levels.
The school has many resources at its disposal which it can use in its task of translating centrally planned curriculum goals and objectives into learning activities. Some of the resources a school may have at its disposal include: money (school fees, sports fees, levies and government grants), physical facilities (classrooms, laboratories, libraries and playgrounds) equipment (radios, televisions and computers) classroom furnishings (desks, benches and chalkboards) teachers books (textbooks and exercise books). A school has to allocate each of these to students in order to realize learning experiences.
Resource allocation at the School Level is that, the school head must recruit qualified and competent teachers. The deployment of these teachers to subject areas and classes is one form of allocating resources at the school level. The school heads should allocate the time, material and human resources at their disposal for the benefit of all. Failure to competently allocate these resources may result in failure to achieve the curriculum goals and objectives the school is set up to achieve in context.
The most important resources teachers have are basically knowledge, skills, and time. It is the teachers who translate the curriculum goals and objectives of the nation, the community and the school into learning experiences. It is therefore important that they have adequate time and competencies to do so. In order for the teaching and learning process to take place effectively and efficiently, teachers must be able to allocate these resources equitably among their students. The teacher is the last person in the chain of command to make sure that resources allocated at various levels are utilized for the benefit of the students.
Parents on the other hands are also a great source of educational resources. In most countries, parents pay fees in order for the school to purchase books and materials needed in the teaching and learning process. In some communities or localities, the parents buy books for their own children. Parents can also contribute towards the salary of teachers, as is the case in private schools and schools with high fees. For south Sudan to have quality education there should be improvement of the education budget and equal distribution of resources to different learning institutions. The government should double its effort in the fight against illiteracy in the country.
The appointment of the National Minister of Education, Science and Technology Dr. John Gai and his deputy Minister Hon. Bol Makueng as human resources has been perceived by many as a blessing to our country. The two personalities in this Ministry are more than nationalists, statesmen, icons of development and legacy promoters. The government has scored highly in the appointment of these two personalities who are committed to national duties, especially in the eradication of illiteracy in the country. They really deserve praise and appreciation.
The writer is a south Sudanese and a graduate with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Education majoring in Geography and History at St. Lawrence University, Kampala Uganda. He can be reached on mabiorrioc@yahoo.com
The opinion expressed here is solely the view of the writer. The veracity of any claim made are the responsibility of the author, not PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers (SSB) website. If you want to submit an opinion article or news analysis, please email it to paanluel2011@gmail.com. SSB do reserve the right to edit material before publication. Please include your full name, email address and the country you are writing from.
About Post Author
