The distribution of educational staff across public schools has long suffered from accumulated imbalances. The Ministry itself revealed that some schools had as many as four assistant principals for educational affairs, while others had two or three heads of department for the same subject. It later also disclosed disparities in the teaching loads of Arabic-language teachers between two schools, where a teacher in one school was responsible for a single class compared with three classes for a teacher in the other.

Against this background, the issuance of 8,703 decisions to redistribute teachers and holders of supervisory positions is based on a legitimate reform objective. Addressing surpluses, filling shortages, and achieving greater fairness in teaching loads are necessary for school stability and for the efficient use of human resources.

Yet the quality of a decision cannot be measured by the soundness of its objective alone. It must also be judged by whether the implementation mechanism is capable of achieving the purpose for which the decision was made.

The Ministry announced that the redistribution process is based on schools' actual needs, the number of classes and students, teaching loads, and the approved organisational structure. It also explained that priority in transferring teachers is given to the most recently appointed teachers in schools where staffing exceeds actual need, while the redistribution of supervisory positions is handled in accordance with the organisational structure and actual staffing requirements.

This is where the discussion begins.

A movement of this scale, involving 8,310 decisions concerning male and female teachers and 393 decisions concerning holders of supervisory positions, requires a high degree of accuracy in assessing the reality of individual schools. Since the Ministry has stated that the process is based on data relating to staffing needs, teaching loads, class numbers, and organisational structures, it is reasonable to ask how current those data were and how closely they reflected the actual situation before the decisions were issued.

However sound its objectives may be, the accuracy of any administrative decision remains dependent on the accuracy of the information on which it is based.

Timing is another important factor. Classes for most students began on 14 September, while the actual implementation of the redistribution decisions began on 6 October. It is therefore natural for a movement of this magnitude, taking place after the start of the school year, to raise questions about its impact on the stability of timetables, teaching loads, and staff assignments within schools. This is particularly relevant in a year that has seen the introduction of new curricula for Grade 10 and the launch of the pathways system at the secondary stage.

At the same time, the Ministry had previously announced that the supervisory positions project and the outcomes of Phase Four would contribute to filling supervisory vacancies and supporting stability in the educational field. Completing this process therefore remains an important part of the broader picture of staff distribution and school stability.

As for appeals, the Ministry designated the period from 7 to 9 October for their submission. In my view, three days is a limited period given the scale of the movement, which involved more than eight thousand decisions, particularly because the appeals process provides an important opportunity to review and correct cases that may require reconsideration.

The Ministry has also stated that the redistribution measures increased the rate at which disparities were addressed from 34 per cent to 82 per cent. This is a notable result, but it raises a legitimate question about the methodology used to calculate it. What exactly does “disparity” mean in this indicator? Is it measured by the number of teachers, teaching loads, vacancies, or the degree to which the organisational structure has been fully staffed?

Publishing the methodology used to calculate this percentage would strengthen the value of the achievement, because an indicator that can be explained and independently understood gives the educational field a clearer picture of both the scale of the problem and the progress made in addressing it.

For this reason, I believe the current stage requires a careful review of appeals, field verification of cases that may need correction, completion of the placement process for vacant supervisory positions, and publication of the methodology used to measure the percentage of disparities that have been addressed.

Administrative reform is necessary, and the Ministry deserves credit for addressing an issue that its own data show had been affected by clear imbalances in staff distribution. Observations about implementation should not be understood as a call to return to the previous imbalance. Rather, they should be viewed as an opportunity to improve the mechanism and enhance its accuracy.

Perhaps the best standard by which to judge the experience is the one emphasised by the Ministry itself: the success of reorganisation should not be measured merely by the number of decisions implemented, but by its ability to create a sustainable balance between the needs of schools and the staff available.

That is what we now expect to see on the ground.