School directors must overcome obstacles -Nyusi

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School directors must overcome obstacles -Nyusi

3:12 CAT | 23 Feb 2016

In File Club of Mozambique / Filipe Nyusi

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said on Monday that the director of a school must be concerned the existing obstacles the school management faces, and others that may occur while he is at the head of the school.

Nyusi, who was speaking in Maputo at the opening of a capacity-building seminar for managers of secondary schools, added that directors must also be concerned to process all the documentation concerning changes and promotions in teachers’ careers.

“If you don’t process these documents properly so that the process advances, then we will have teachers who are always complaining”, he said, pointing out that school directors are fundamental for the paper work involved in the teachers’ advancement up the career ladder.

There are currently 659 secondary schools in Mozambique, and 136 of their directors are taking part in the capacity building exercise which is scheduled to end next Friday. The purpose is to strengthen school directors’ capacity for leadership and for administrative, financial and educational management.

Nyusi presented in detail the challenges facing secondary school directors, stressing that they need vision, discipline, patience, creativity, pragmatism and humanism. They would be expected to manage pupils and staff, the finances of the school, as well as its buildings and other material resources.

If a director is to operate changes, he said, he must show responsibility, humility, honesty and courage. In his daily conduct, the director must be “a model of honesty”.

A school director must be committed to the objectives of society, added Nyusi, so that through his example “he can mobilize and motivate the school community”. He warned that a director who does not lead by example is doomed to failure.

A director must also find adequate solutions to each situation “with speed and effectiveness”. Pragmatism, Nyusi added, assists in taking decisions in good time, even under adverse circumstances in which the director must act “in the best interests of the school”.

In management, quality should be the fundamental and guiding principle, stressed the President. “We are shaping young people with cognitive and behavioural tools which will guide them for the rest of their lives”, he said.

The most difficult form of management was to manage people, he said. This was the focus of conflict and required “great concentration”.

Management became more effective, Nyusi added, when everyone is involved – including the school management, the teachers and the pupils.

Source: AIM