|
 | The Acting USP Vice-Chancellor, Dr Esther Williams and the Permanent Secretary for PSC, Mr Parmesh Chand shake hands after signing the agreement. |
|
The Fiji Public Service Commission has joined hands with the University of the South Pacific to meet the capacity building and professional needs of civil servants at the executive level to further improve the performance and delivery of the public service.
This is after the signing of the Executive Leadership Development Training Agreement between the two parties at the PSC Training Centre in Suva on 7 January, 2013.
The training will assist managers and supervisors acquire competencies to deal with management and leadership issues that come with positions of responsibility.
Over 120 civil servants are expected to undergo this training, which will be delivered by the University’s Regional Centre for Continuing & Community Education (RCCCE). RCCCE facilitates a wide range of professional and vocational training in response to the needs of its member countries.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, the Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Commission (PSC), Mr Parmesh Chand described the partnership as an important one in ensuring that senior civil servants in the country are well trained to make informed and educated decisions.
This, he said, is part of the reforms undertaken by Government to make the public service more responsive, customer-focused and service-driven.
According to Mr Chand, the initiative started in 2010 with the training of permanent secretaries followed by the training of deputy secretaries in 2011.
The Permanent Secretary said that after the tender process, the decision was made to give USP the responsibility to deliver the training of Senior Executive Services (SES) in the civil service.
The Acting USP Vice-Chancellor, Dr Esther Williams welcomed the decision by PSC to award the training tender to USP.
“We are happy to be partnering with PSC in the delivery of a very crucial and important training of Fiji’s public service,” she added.
Highlighting the importance of the programme, Dr Williams elaborated that leadership, supervisory and change management training is now necessary in the current working environment where things are changing rapidly with new approaches, new expectations, new standards of service and new technologies.
Key areas of the training include:
· Development of personnel and career goals and plans;
· Familiarization with roles of a leader and a manager;
· Networking amongst management peers;
· Acquisition of leadership and management competencies;
· Adaptation of strategic perspectives; and
· Self-actualization.
The Acting Vice-Chancellor explained that such training initiatives were aligned to the new USP Strategic Plan under Priority 5 - Regional and Community Engagement.
Both Mr Chand and Dr Williams expressed their delight in working together under the new partnership.
“I look forward to our new partnership in this important work. USP is proud to be given the opportunity to play a part in the training of Fiji’s public service,” stated Dr Williams.
The programme which is made up of eight modules, will adopt a multimodal approach that includes face-to-face workshops as well as workplace and online-based learning. After successfully completing the eight modules, participants will be awarded the Professional Diploma in Business Leadership.
Newly appointed Manager of RCCCE, Mr Hasmukh Lal said, RCCCE will work with member countries and the private sector to offer a range of executive development and middle management trainings for workforce development in the region.
|
