The Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Services Commission (IARCSC) on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Education (MoE) on review of structure, the implementation of mass recruitment tests and review of the ministry’s human resources activities.

Addressing an event in Kabul, Ahmad Nader Nadery, the IARCSC chairman, said the MoU signed is aimed at fostering the quality of training and the management system of the human resources department of the Ministry of Education.

“Two common concerns the minister (of education) and the government of Afghanistan, in general, has is first, it is related to the education and training sphere and this will be achieved through structural reforms and punctual review. The second concern is related to the management of human resources,” said Nadery.  

The Acting Education Minister Mirwais Balkhi said the MoU will help to undertake the biometric process of over 290,000 teachers nationwide and to prevent the issue of “ghost teachers”.

Based on Education Ministry’s statistics, the employees of the ministry make up over 70 percent of the entire civil service members of Afghanistan.

The implementation of the biometric system will help to bring about systematic reforms in the education sector, Balkhi said.

“We also need the cooperation of the (administrative reform) commission to help us in areas such as structural reforms and decentralization of the education sector,” said Balkhi.

Officials of the commission said similar MoUs will be signed with other government institutions as well.