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Farirai Machivenyika
Senior Reporter
Upgrading the civil service to manage national development through setting up a Public Service Academy (PSA) is now at an advanced stage.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) is already working on parts of the required curricula and the practical details of setting up the academy.
The PSC is working on a legal and institutional framework for the establishment of the academy which is aimed at transforming the training of civil servants, improve service delivery and achieve targets set in the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1).
Cabinet approved the principles for the establishment of the PSA in May and since then the PSC has been carrying out research and making study tours to draw lessons from other countries on the best way forward.
“While the institutional framework of establishing the PSA is being worked on, the PSC has started the ball rolling by identifying key priority programmes and module development processes are in progress,” said the PSC in a statement.
The blueprints and agendas set by Government required human resources with requisite capacities.
“The realisation is that these people have to be adequately trained since human capital development and innovation are the engines which will drive the NDS1 and the country’s progress towards Vision 2030,” said the PSC.
“Human capital development and innovation will create the right conditions for a knowledge driven economy for sustained growth, industrialisation and modernisation of the country.”
The PSC said the objectives of the PSA were to provide in-service training for the development of officers in the public service, to equip officers in the public service with the appropriate values, orientation, work ethics, skills and public service management tools.
The academy would transform and integrate existing public services training institutions into a single institution which spearheaded human capital development in pursuit of sustainable and inclusive national development.
The PSA would also provide continuous learning for public servants, promote organisational excellence, provide capacity building programmes that were well coordinated and seek to address performance gaps in the public service and enhance the achievement of national Vision 2030. It would also represent Zimbabwe internationally on matters related to or connected with development of officers in the public service and engage in research relevant to the development of officers to improve performance in Government.
PSC said the academy was expected to provide courses linked to the constitutional role of the PSC and make a visible contribution to solving performance problems in the public service.
“The introduction of the PSA will promote vertical integration in public service training with the 13 public training centres and will include devolution training to grow the GDPs of provinces,” said PSC.
The establishment of the PSA follows the launch of the two-year PSC Strategic Plan in 2018 by President Mnangagwa where he implored the commission to impart new sets of skills, competencies, ethos and culture that are relevant to the new economic and development thrust.
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