THE COMMITTEE Secretariat of the National Parliament has successfully conducted a one-day Information Workshop for 30 local Educationists on 30 March 2016 at the Sir Paul Tovua complex.
The participants ranged from University representatives of USP and University of Goroka, Principals, Deputy Principals, Career Masters, Senior Social Study Teachers, Headmasters, Supervisors for ECE Schools and Admin Assistants of Secondary and Primary schools in Guadalcanal and Honiara.
The initiative was to aid Educationists with relevant capacities to engage with Parliamentary Committees.
The workshop covers Introduction to Parliament, the Functions and Roles of the Parliamentary Committees and how Educationists as potential stakeholders can be better engaged in the Committee processes.
The Guest Speaker during the occasion was the Member of Parliament for Central Makira and Chairman of the Parliamentary Education and Human Resources Training Committee, Hon Nestor Giro.
Hon Giro told the participants that when they engage themselves in such workshop programmes, they as educators will better understand and appreciate the importance of representation, lawmaking, public leadership and Parliamentary Scrutiny.
“This programme will be meaningful for you and that you will use knowledge you might have acquired through this programme wisely in any Parliamentary proceedings you are invited or requested to be engaged in, in the near future” Hon Giro added.
The programme then continued with presentations from the Committee Secretariat staff of Parliament on the Roles and functions of Parliament, Committee System, Legislative processes and Inquiry Processes.
One of the highlights was the mock committee hearing where the Participants have a taste of the real thing by enacting the role of a Committee on a real issue.
Participants, after going through the activity, stated that the work of the Committees, especially the inquiry process, was not an easy task.
“The process itself is tiring compared to my work,” a participant explained.
However, the Parliament Secretariat team also took note of few comments made by participants on certain areas of improvement the committees faced as challenges.
Participants conveyed their appreciation for the opportunity and pledged their interest to assist Parliamentary Committees with their roles in Parliament.
Director of Committees, Mr Marson Lilopeza, assured the participants that the whole idea of such information workshop is to engage stakeholders to better understand and appreciate how the Committee system works and see how best they can utilise this opportunity to raise issues directly to the House for the benefit of their Organisations and the public.
All along, most stakeholders do not see the linkage between them and Parliamentary Committees; therefore, they do not fully utilise it.
Mr Lilopeza told participants that their concerns brought back whole intention of conducting this workshop, which is to establish and continue to build the working relationship between stakeholders and the Committees.
This is the seventh (7th) Information Workshop on Parliamentary Committees.
This outreach initiative was taken up by the Committee Secretariat of the National Parliament of Solomon Islands since November 2013.
Since then quite a number of senior post holders from various Government Ministries, including Permanent Secretaries, Undersecretaries, Directors from government Ministries, Constitutional Offices, State Owned Enterprise, Public and Private Entities, Non – Government Organisations and Civil Societies have benefitted from these workshops.
— NATIONAL PARLIAMENT MEDIA
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