Business Process Re-Engineering
I’m now halfway through my first day on the 5-day Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) Implementation Training c(o)urse.
BPR has been a huge deal in Ethiopia over the last year or so, essentially all government organizations (so includes just about every organization) are in the process of being reorganized. Mekelle University is (apparently) one of the first to have actually started implementing it’s BPR outcomes, and all university staff, academic and support (including expatriates) are now attending the 5 day training course- at the same time.
The first morning was held in the huge presentation hall at the memorial building, with around 1500-2000 staff attending (I feel the attendance may drop off by the afternoon! – update – yes, less than half came to the afternoon sessions!). Talk so far as involved emphasizing the aspects where the university needs to improve, for example in communication, teacher attendance, student satisfaction, teaching methods etc. They are also attempting to encourage teachers to make use of active learning principles, formative assessment and team teaching – but I’m currently unsure how easy it will be to get the teachers to change their working practices in such a substantial way.
It all sounds great in theory, but they really need to start putting some of this into practice rather than just talking about it. Leading by example would be good. At 5pm the day before the training, our department hadn’t received any information as to the time, location or schedule for the sessions – neither was any of this info included in the advertising posters (which only contained the date) – so doesn’t yet sound like a great improvement in communication yet! So will see what the rest of the training brings – there is a chance the rest will be held in Amharic so it’ll be fairly pointless me attending!
