REC - EMTC: Insight 2/2: A basis for civil service training in CEE

B O O K S

A basis for civil service training in CEE

Comparative study provides framework for regional system

OECD: Country Profiles of Civil Service Training Systems: SIGMA Papers No. 12
Prepared by SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management in Central and Eastern European Countries)
Paris 1997

The collapse of communist systems throughout Central and Eastern Europe left a widespread need to retrain personnel in order to get countries fit for the new challenges.

However, training at that time was only incremental and ad hoc. Few people, if anyone at all, knew enough about the new needs and objectives to demand or supply the proper training. For this reason, contents and styles were often just the transfer of Western techniques to a completely different environment. Many of them failed.

For years after that, no basis for a systematic approach existed. Now, nearly eight years after the political changes, Support for Improvement in Governance and Management in Central and Eastern European Countries (SIGMA) has published a report that provides this framework for building coherent and cohesive training systems in the region.

The report, entitled "Country Profiles of Civil Service Training Systems," lays out a framework that could effectively end the experimentation phase of training in CEE. The report is the first comparative study of the training systems used throughout the region. It documents programs developed for training civil servants in Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Comparison of the various programs used in recent years gives trainers a further understanding of methods that work most effectively within a Central European context. This can certainly aid the development of unified training efforts that work in a regional context and help trainers develop more innovative solutions for future training issues.

STAGES OF TRAINING OVER THE YEARS
1. Experimentation Training sessions immediately after the fall of communist regimes were mostly experimental, rather than systematic approaches based on needs or demands.	2. Demand-led Pressing needs led to a more concentrated and sustained response, but training was nevertheless often ad hoc and without structured aims or objectives.	3. Creation of a focal point In some places, the responsibilities for training have been concentrated in one place, for example at a coordinating ministry or state offices.	4. Broad institutionalization This would involve creating a school for administrative issues, a step still to be taken in most of the countries.

Comparisons are easy to make

"Country Profiles" is more than mere documentation. The first chapter explains the strengths and weaknesses of a number of Western training systems and it gives additional information about the outside methods. Subsequent chapters describe the different stages of development of the training systems in CEE countries, including the prerequisites for establishing a training system, etc. The conclusions spelled out in the beginning are easy to recognize because the study is structured in a way that makes it easy to compare experiences in the different countries. Each country profile is broken into sections in the following manner:

Objectives of training. Identification of the official objectives of training or, if there are none, description of the situation.
Legal framework. Do civil servants have a right or an obligation to assist training? Or is participation in training just a way to advance a person's career?
Funding. Who has to pay for the training - the trainee or the office? Are there foreign funding sources?
Training institutions. A look at the institutions that exist and a discussion of their legal status.
Teaching personnel. Information on the background of the teachers.
Needs assessment and contents of training. A description of the most important subjects and methods of training.
Target groups. To whom is the training targeted?
Training formats. Description of the training formats offered, from school and university courses to other types of vocational training.
Development of training curricula. Are the curricula demand-driven or supply-driven? Who is responsible developing training materials?
Planned changes and further developments. An outlook for the developments of the near future.

A helpful tool for the region

Overall, the study is an engaged plea for the development of a broadly based, multi-level, comprehensive and continuous training system. It gives the starting point, and for the careful reader it even hints at a way to develop a coherent training system for the whole region. The report identifies strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, and it could help anyone engaged in training in CEE.

SIGMA's target audience is above all the donors. The organization plainly states it wants to "provide donors with additional information on training structures and systems." However, the report is a helpful tool for the CEE countries to improve their training capacities and enhance effectiveness and efficiency. Trainers, too, will find useful information regarding the priorities in developing a training system.

A useful compilation of varied experiences from several countries in the region, "Country Profiles" is an excellent information resource for anyone working on civil service reform in Central and Eastern Europe.

- Dirk Amtsberg

Data in the book is limited to April 1996, but updates are available on the SIGMA website: http://www.oecd.org/puma/sigmaweb
To order a copy of the report, contact: SIGMA-OECD, 2 rue Andre Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France; Tel: (33-1) 4524-8200; Fax: (33-1) 4524-1300; e-mail: sigma.comtact@oecd.org

REC * EMTC * PUBLICATIONS * INSIGHT * AUTUMN 1997