RIAM to address skills gap
On January 25, the Ministry of Public Service and Labor (Mifotra) in collaboration with the Rwanda Institute of Administration and Management (RIAM) and the Maastricht School of Management (MSM) officially launched the RIAM 2008 training calendar.
At the occasion, Minister Manasseh Nshuti said that Rwanda attaches great importance to capacity building in order to give people a lifetime opportunity to improve their livelihoods. He further remarked that this session is an exclusive programme including several training sessions that have been put in place for better working results of employees, thus contributing to the development of the country.
This training session will include diploma courses in human resource management, financial management, strategic management, operations management, office management and purchase management. Each course will comprise of 12 weeks of training, split up into 6 modules of 2 weeks each.
Per course, participants will attend a module about every 2 months, and each course is spread over one year. Courses will be developed jointly by RIAM and MSM. MSM-approved diplomas will be issued at the successful completion of the courses.
The national training priorities that RIAM will deal with in 2008 include capacity building in the following areas: Induction programme, Bridging the skills gap programme, Executive programme, Gender programme, Local government training programme, Reintegration programme, and Private and Civil sectors development programs.
The minister remarked that in most instances civil servants are put to work in areas in which they are not specialized, so the courses will give them the required skills to enable them to perform better.
Furthermore, with the input from other stakeholders the courses will be made country-specific, thus addressing specific problems faced by civil servants in the country. “This training will be of great help in our endeavor to enhance capacity,” Minister Nshuti said.
Jeanette Oostijen, the project consultant of MSM, explained that the school was asked by RIAM to develop courses for post-graduate diploma in several areas of expertise, and that the programme will be skills-based and very practical.
For his part, the director general of RIAM, Marc Kabandana, said that RIAM before had offered Master of Administration programs, but now they will include this course to offer post-graduate diplomas after it was realized that certain employees are occupying a post that is not related to the degrees they have. Therefore, he said, this training will enhance their working capacity in such jobs.
Kabandana added that all the subjects offered in this course are conceived within the framework of achieving the goals of EDPRS. Speaking of the phases that will be involved in these trainings, he said that 250 workers from the central government will be trained this year, and next year it will be the turn of local government workers, to be followed by the private sector and the civil society.
When asked if even individuals will be given a chance to pursue these courses, Kabandana said that for now RIAM is concentrating on building the capacity of institutions like the government, the public and private sector.
At the end of the meeting, it was agreed that the ministries and governments parastatals should submit the list of candidates who are to pursue the courses and their training schedules to Mifotra, so that they can be harmonized with RIAM’s training calendar. RIAM, for its part, was requested to collaborate with Ralga in implementing the training program for the local government.
Furthermore, RIAM in partnership with MSM will continue consulting different stakeholders for better preparation of Diploma courses until March, and it will write to institutions requesting their suggestions and proposals about the released training calendar 2008 before February 25.
Posted by The Rwanda Focus
on Jan 28 2008. Filed under National.
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