Public Service and Administration acting Minister, Thulas Nxesi, on Wednesday announced the roll out of a suite of funded courses for public servants offered by the National School of Government to be delivered at no cost to government departments.
The courses will be delivered as part of promoting the professionalisation of the public service and improving the performance of public servants in their respective roles and responsibilities in the three spheres of government, which are national, provincial and local.
These courses will be allocated and shared per province and national departments.
The following funded courses are available for immediate enrolment by public servants in the three spheres of government:
Citizen-centred Service Delivery: This programme will help public servants to re-engineer their relationship with the public and reflect on how they are delivering services to the citizens.
Art of Facilitation for progressive realisation of socio-economic rights: Empower Traditional Leaders to act as economic change agents in their communities and be able to create sustainable jobs and community wealth while also building an active rural citizenry who participate in and support economic development. It will also support Traditional Leaders to identify and utilise local natural resources in an environmentally sustainable way.
Art of Facilitating Participatory Community Engagement: To build active citizens who know and assert their rights and can hold government accountable and to promote societal progress through building an understanding among government officials on how to engage communities.
Youth Development (Personal Mastery): To prepare young people, especially interns for work beyond government with generic employability skills such as self-management, emotional intelligence, critical thinking and decision-making, networking as well as applying for jobs in the public service.
Supply Chain Management for Public Service: To develop public sector supply chain management skills in order to accelerate service delivery and alleviate adverse supply chain management related findings in departments and public entities.
Avoiding Irregular, Fruitless and Wasteful Expenditure: Empower public officials with skills required for managing government expenditure in order to prevent irregular, unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Programme and Project Management: To empower public servants to design and deliver programmes aimed at advancing the National Development Plan Vision 2030.
Coaching for Leadership Development: To empower public servants with coaching skills and tools to enhance management individual development skills sets as well as organizational development.
Evidence-Based Policy Making and Implementation: To empower officials with technical skills to be able to use a range of tools to support policy development and implementation processes.
Minister Nxesi emphasised the need for ongoing education, training and development of public servants.
“Government is serious about building a capable state and a public service that has the requisite skills to serve the public efficiently, effectively and with courtesy.
“We will continue to invest in the training and development of public servants so that they can fulfil their tasks empowered by the necessary knowledge and expertise. We invite government departments in the three spheres to make use of this opportunity and enrol officials for this much-needed training,” said Minister Nxesi.
Enquiries on the courses should be made to the following email address: fundedprogrammes@thensg.gov.za.
Source: South African Government News Agency