‘I believe in professional autonomy’

Malawi National Examination Board (Maneb) executive director Roy Hauya has resigned from his position effective next month. Weekend Nation caught up with him to learn more about the resignation.

Q. Why you have resigned from Maneb?

A.

I have resigned my position as executive director of Maneb effective 31st October 2013. I will serve notice over two months and will be out of Maneb by the start of 2014. It was a hard decision to make. The hardest decision I have had to make in my 30-year public service career.

As to why, I hope you appreciate that resignation even from a public position is a private matter which calls for no interrogation. However, as a student and practitioner of management and strategic planning, I believe in professional autonomy. I like to serve the public in an environment that allows personal belief, transparency and integrity, all working together. I work well where those placed in positions of oversight are supportive of the management team and have the professionalism to respect and protect management. It is my experience that management works well where it is released to do what the team values and have faith in; where leadership defends principles no matter how controversial.

Q. Your resignation comes days after the release of Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination results? Was your resignation motivated by the examination results of the examination?

A.

I am a professional. I was fully aware that processing, release and dealing with queries on 2013 results is a critical stage which required management leadership. I was not going to abandon my team at a time such as this. I was going to submit for release results of an examination tainted by a leakage, and I was going to take full responsibility of those results by taking all blows, if any, and then move on.

The 2013 MSCE results are perfectly credible. I appreciate the outcry over leakages, but I have confidence in the internationally tested tools and systems that Maneb applies. It is unfortunate that we have to deal with such recurrent leakages, but till now, great efforts are made to present the true reflection of the performance of the candidates Maneb registers.

Q.You promised to improve activities at Maneb and people viewed you as the symbol of hope, have you failed?

A.

I am humbled by many comments regarding developments that were taking place in Maneb and the direction the organisation was going. I am aware that I presented a new face and that expectations were high. I must say that I was geared to that level of expectation, till the situation became unattainable.

I would hate to sound defensive, but in my view, I have not failed. In an organisation with a long tradition such as Maneb changes and developments would invariably take time. However, I am content that in the time I was allowed to lead Maneb, I have laid down the foundation for effective management of its internal and external processes.

Nor do I feel that I have let the nation down, except in the sense that it is no longer possible to follow through my dream. But this is a dream shared with management and there are good prospects that what we started as a team will roll on.

Q. On several occasions you complained of lack of support, what type of support were you referring to?

A.

Maneb requires understanding and active participation from stakeholders in education. As a service body, it must be favoured with fair guidance through collective responsibility particularly in the case of malpractices. Maneb is dealing with a nation which has lost its morality in every sector, and regaining moral stability is hardly the role of an examination body. Nor is Maneb a security organisation which should be burdened with blame and criticism in a country where deception, trickery and corruption are a perpetual national crisis.

Parents, schools, school owners, civil society, the media, security organisations all must contribute towards guiding, counselling, disciplining and monitoring the behaviour of those who take national examinations for the sake of building a new nation with adequate moral-ethical checks and balances.

It should be appreciated that examinations are a capital intensive exercise and to achieve quality and assure adequate security is as much as matter of management as is of enabling resources. In the same manner, we cannot afford to politicise examinations and expect order in the manner in which they are administered.

Q. Why do you think examination leakages continue?

A.

This is a complex question for the space available. However, I always see examination malpractices as a manifestation of two intensely negative but changeable conditions. First, it shows desperation on the part of students, teachers and for that matter parents for success given the size and quality of the education system and the narrow path to higher education. Second, it is an indication of falling moral standards tempered by deepening poverty, limited avenues for eking out livelihoods and frustratingly un-exemplary leadership over time.

The long term solution is to improve the quality of school level education and expand access to higher education. The short term drive should be to increase values education to the young generation, invest in collective action in providing oversight for examinations and give Maneb the resources it needs to provide technical leadership and quality control of all stages of examination management.

Q. How best do you think Maneb can be run in the interest of every citizen?

A.

Among other issues, I suggest that Maneb should become a public institution accountable to the people of Malawi. As an agency dealing in work which defines people’s ambitions Maneb should develop a Service Charter which declares and commits it to simple accessible service standards in all areas of its operations by which it will be assessed by its customers. In addition, Maneb must manage examinations within a clear publicly accessed calendar for all its examinations and undertake to keep this schedule. Last, not least, Malawians should seek to support Maneb with guidance. Uninformed criticism not only demoralises, it is enormously counterproductive.