THE Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD) with a commitment to implement its priority activities for next year, has conducted a two-day Annual Work Planning workshop from Thursday 29 to Friday 30 August at the Melanesian Haus, St Barnabas Cathedral.
Facilitated by the Strategic Support Division within MEHRD in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the annual work plan devised identified key activities and projects that the MEHRD would implement in 2025. The workshops were convened a week early of the much-anticipated Launch of the National Budget Strategy of the National Government which the Ministry of Finance and Treasury (MOFT) plan to launch on Friday 6th September 2024. The planning of the 2025 MEHRD work plan will be continued till it is finalised.
The participants of the workshop comprised of members of the Senior Management, Heads of Divisions, senior officials and advisors of the ministry who have been identified to lead the implementation of priority activities and projects in accordance with the National Education Action Plan 2022-2026.
The two-day workshop provided an opportunity for Heads of Divisions and senior officers of the ministry to review their progress against their 2024 priorities, shared experiences and evidence as well as provided resolutions to shape the priority activities for 2025. Learning from the lessons of the past year, the ministry was satisfied that it had paved the direction to improve the planning process and looked ahead to implementation of the planned activities and projects in 2025.
Not only that, but the workshop also provided the opportunity for each division within ministry to agree on their priorities, engage in group discussions and design SMART activities for their 2025 divisional plans. In other words, the resource persons that lead each planning session focused on how to set SMART goals that are – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
Most importantly, at the conclusion of the workshop, each division had identified the core activities that would make up their 2025 divisional annual work plan.
Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Permanent Secretary Dr Franco Rodie said planning is crucial to ensure the ministry identifies the activities and projects it intends to implement next year.
He was impressed that his ministry had a clear direction in planning the activities and projects for next year.
“I am glad we now have a clear direction in which we are going to plan the activities and project,” he said.
While he was impressed with the planning, he reminded the participants to carefully plan their activities and projects considering the ministry’s capacities, contexts, and must be within the baseline budget.
In 2025 the Ministry will be implementing the core priorities indicated by the NEAP 2025-2026 and other upcoming programs, including Government for National Unity and Transformation (GNUT) policy, Global Partnership for Education funding (GPE), Pacific Regional Education Framework (PacREF) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) Senior Secondary Improvement School Project.
MEHRD acknowledges UNICEF for its supports in the implementation and progress on a number of priority activities such as Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, GPE funding, System Transformation Grant, ECE and Teacher Professional Development, Education Legislative Reform and others.
