Republic of Mauritius- Training courses for public officers to ensure the highest level of services

This statement was made by the Minister of Public Service, Administrative and Institutional Reforms, Mr. Teeruthraj Hurdoyal, this morning, at the opening ceremony of a workshop for Chairpersons of Training Committees being held at the Caudan Arts Centre in Port-Louis.  

In his address, the Minister highlighted that public officers are the architect of a dynamic and modern public service and armed with the optimum proficiencies, can enhance significantly the development of the country for a modern society. Hence, he emphasised that investing in human resources is essential to  improving service delivery and ensure the emergence of a talented workforce, while indicating that some Rs 113 M has been earmarked for the purpose of enhancing the competencies of public officers through training.

Minister Teeruthraj Hurdoyal reiterated the commitment of Government to improve the performance and boost the productivity of public officers as well as to ensure that they have the necessary competencies to deliver at the expected level.  He underlined that training and development is a vital component of Human Resource Management and forms part of the overall strategy to nurture a culture of performance in the Public Service, hence capacity building and capability development is a central and integral constituent of the Public Sector Business Transformation Strategy which is being driven by his Ministry.

In order to achieve the objective set by Government with regards to training, he said, it is imperative that Training Committees are fully functional and instrumental in the identification of training requirements of public officers in Ministries and Departments so that the appropriate training could be imparted to them.

According to the Minister, the workshop is in line with Government’s agenda of undertaking a transformational change of the public service in the wake of the demands of globalisation and economic liberalisation, and to ensure delivery of high quality and more sophisticated public services.

He observed that public organisations are under constant pressure to ensure the highest level of services that demands professionalism and commitment to quality in service delivery and are called upon reinvent themselves in order to face the daunting challenges that are ever unfolding.

He also pointed out that the Ministry has devised a new list of training modules built around five clusters taking into account the need to ensure the capacity building and capability development of public sector employees, irrespective of grades, as well as the imperatives of the ongoing transformation of the public sector and that for the first time, the training strategy contains a training programme designed specifically for employees of the Workmen’s group. 

The workshop

The one-day workshop is a joint collaboration of the Ministry of Public Service, Administrative and Institutional Reforms, in collaboration with the Civil Service College. The objectives are to develop an annual training plan based on the amount budgeted for training while prioritising essential training needs to develop the training plan, considering the interest of the organisation; ensure that every new recruit undergoes an induction course; identify key technical and functional capacity gaps; conduct training needs assessment with the organisation and ensure that appropriate training courses are mounted for staff members through the Civil Service College.