Online courses to build capacity of govt officers

President says officers must be publicly-responsive

ISLAMABAD:

To build the capacity of government officers and to enhance their understanding of various issues, the president has directed to develop short, online courses for them.

This was directed on Wednesday by President Dr Arif Alvi while chairing the 17th meeting of the Board of Governors (BoG) of the National School of Public Policy (NSPP) at the Aiwan-e-Sadr. The meeting was attended by the Federal Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari, Establishment Secretary Dr Ijaz Munir, NSPP Rector Azmat Ranjha, Dr Faisal Bari, Arifa Subohi and other members of the board.

Dr Alvi asked the school to launch the online courses. He stressed that these training programmes align with the best international practices on public policy to make government officers publicly-responsive and highly-motivated to manage the challenges faced by the country.

NSPP Rector Ranjha briefed the president about NSPP’s role in imparting training government officers. He highlighted the steps taken by the school is offering online courses during the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

He added that as a first step, the NSPP had split the duration of its mid-career management course (MCMC) into two parts. The first part lasts for 10 weeks at the NSPP while the second part lasts for four weeks and provides domain-specific technical training at the respective specialized training institutes.

To appoint deans for the school, the board constituted a search committee. This committee has been handed a mandate to prepare customised criteria and draft terms and conditions for the selection of potential candidates.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2020.