Manama: Kuwait is considering transforming the education ministry into an independent authority to be headed by a secretary general.

The authority will be directly under the Council of Ministers and the secretary general will be appointed for a four-year term that can be renewed only once.

“The idea is to keep the education ministry aside from the frequent cabinet reshuffles that mean changing the minister and therefore the policies too quickly,” sources told Al Seyassah newspaper.

“The political instability in the country has often meant giving the education portfolios to ministers for a short period of times in line with the reshuffles. This also meant that the plans, strategies and projects are not implemented and are either delayed or changed. There is no concrete progress,” the sources said in the remarks published by the daily on Saturday.

The shift from ministry to authority will entail several administrative and financial issues and changes, the sources added.

“The authority will have its own independent budget and will not be linked with the civil service commission, unlike the ministry.”

Kuwait’s government resigned last week after several of its ministers faced grilling and even a possible no-confidence vote by lawmakers from the powerful parliament who said that they had noted several financial and administrative irregularities and wanted the ministers to respond to them.

The new government should be formed by the end of next week amid reports that all the ministers will be named by January 5.

Kuwait has one of the smallest cabinets in the Arab world with only 16 ministers. The country’s parliament itself faced a possible exit after more than 50 people filed petitions challenging its election in July.

The challengers said that the polls were unconstitutional on the grounds that the decree calling for them was not constitutional.

However, the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country, last week ruled that the parliament was constitutional, allowing it to remain.

However, it revoked the membership of two lawmakers and replaced them by two others who said that they had won in the polls, but their opponents were wrongly declared winners.