United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The eOman outlined 11 key initiatives that will transform Oman into a knowledge-based economy. Some of the key initiative includes the developing of the eGovernment Portal as a stop service for all government online services and many others. To be able to utilise all the eServices provided by the government and private enterprises, the citizens and target audience must be digitally literate. Digital literacy is a ‘life skill’ just like literacy and numeracy. It has been defined as the ability to use “…digital technology, communication tools, and/or networks to access, manage, integrate, evaluate and create information in order to function in a knowledge society”.

Human resource capability is also one of the key indicators used by international organisations like United Nations, World Economic Forum and the International Telecommunication Union, to ascertain the country’s e-readiness. Human resource development is one of the key issues that must be addressed in order to prepare the citizens to adopt the e-lifestyle in a knowledge-based economy which is inline with the eOman initiatives. Without digital literacy, no amount of eServices no matter how or what killer applications are used, the usage rate will remain low and the productivity would be severely handicapped.

The National IT Training & Awareness Framework (NITTA) initiative is a governmental nation-wide eOman initiative aimed at developing Information Communication Technology (ICT) skills, capability and increasing ICT awareness and proficiency within the Government, the community and the private sector. The Framework covers a wide range of ICT competency and skills development projects

The NITTA provided framework for IT Training to 4 levels of society;
Level 1- Basic IT literacy and proficiency to civil service, community and students
Level 2 –Business and workforce
Level 3 & 4 – Specialised professionals

For the Government IT Training programme, the target is to train 98,000 civil services by 2012 and for the Community IT Training project, the target is to train about 60,000 citizens by 2011 on IT basic skills in order to reduce IT illiteracy and to bridge the digital divide. In addition, ITA will establish 25 Community Knowledge Centers (CKCs) in 25 Wilaya (Regions) during the coming 5 years.

Since the implementation of NITTA in Apr 2007, we have trained a total number of 10, 721 civil service employees, more than 1000 citizens in digital literacy skills under the various projects.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
There are many groups that will benefits from this project including (Government, community, private sector, and teachers) The government will increased the skills level and enhance the competency of their workers by engaging in this project. It will save lots of investment during the implementation of its IT project, investment in the form of additional basic training rather than specific application training. Most of the IT projects implementation have problem getting buy in from the user, this is mostly due to the fear of change and the fear of technology. By empowering the user and getting them familiar with using IT application, it will be easier to introduce and implement technologies in their everyday work. The community will benefits from three ways, firstly, it is job creation for the job seekers as those selected will be given training on how to run and manage training centers. Later on these centres will become a new business for them and increase their value from workers to entrepreneurs. Secondly, for the teachers who are involved in the programme, they will get advance training and in IT. Moreover, apart from training civil servants during their off-duty hours, the teachers also bring back the additional knowledge and skills to their students in school. That is also the third way in which the community benefits from the initiative. Students will be able to get better IT education and better skills transferred from their teacher whom been engaged in the project, student in turn will share the experience with their family members. The project aim to train around 100,000 government employees, assuming each trainee shared and transfer the knowledge and skills to 4 family members we will reach 500,000 Oman who are capable of understanding and applying the basic IT skills and utilize the government services. The private sector will also benefit from this project as the channel of implementations are via government schools and private institutes. The project will create business opportunities in the area of IT training in Oman. The government is studying whether to make it mandatory for new recruit in the civil service to have a digital literacy certificate. This will encourage more fresh graduates and the unemployed to take up digital literacy training in private institutes. These multi-prong approach ensures that all the citizens are given the opportunity to be digitally literate.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The project was first proposed by Gartner who developed the overall Oman IT strategy toward an e-government, e-citizens, and e-business. Local company, ASM Technology LLC, developed the National IT Training & Awareness Framework based on the Gartner strategy. The projects are managed by ITA. For the Government IT Training Project, Certiport Inc was chosen to implement the training programme and to certify the civil service employees with IC3 Certification. The main stakeholders of the project are ITA, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Civil Service and Certiport. In the Community IT Training Programme, the Non-Government Organisations such as the Oman Sports Association, Oman Woman Association are roped in to deliver the training to the community through the Community Knowledge Centers (CKC). The CKCs are established in various regions to reach out to the community. The Microsoft Unlimited Potential curriculum was used as a basis to deliver foundation level training for the community.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The objective of the project where established by ITA together with all the stakeholders The objectives of the project are: 1- Train and certify more around 100,000 government employee 2- Provide digital literacy training to 60,000 people in the community 3- Recruit and trainee more than 200 job seekers to be trainers in the project. 4- Engaging the civil servant to use the government e-services. 5- Support the objectives of the eOman strategy 6- Enhance ICT human capital development for Oman 7- Provide employment opportunities for the Omani youth in the ICT sector 8- Promote the development of the ICT sector within Oman 9- Prepare the private and public sector for greater participation in a digital, knowledge based society 10- Promote an increased awareness and understanding of ICT 11- Improve Oman’s international ICT rankings ITA working in collaboration with various ministries and non-government organizations rolled out these 2 main digital literacy prgrammes in phases. At the end of the pilot, a thorough summative evaluation was conducted to evaluate the impact of the digital literacy training.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The key development and implementation steps of the project is listed below in chronological order. 1- 2006 - Business case was build based on the overall strategy and the National IT awareness Framework on the Government IT Training and the Community IT Training 2- October 2006 to May 2007 – Pilot 3- September 2007 to November 2007 – RFP 4- December 2008 to May 2008 – Evaluation 5- September 2008 to October 2008 – Contracting 6- November 2008 to October 1011 – Execution 7- The first phase of training started on the 28th of February 2009

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
In implementing NITTA Framework, the team faced the following obstacles; -Communication with various stakeholders The project team has to deal with 38 government entities, in 11 different locations in Oman; currently the team has more than 200 focal points to communicate with for all the aspects of the project. One to one meeting was done with General Directors to market and communicate the project to them, all their contact details were captured and communicated to the team. The project team also has much difficulty reaching the trainers who are spared all over the regions and it is very hard to communicate with more than 1,000 people and ask them to come for pre-assessment, training, or exams. The solution was to use the SMS service, bulk SMS where sent to all participants to come for pre-assessment, training, or exams and it was a very good solution. Hence, the team developed a website to share all the information and news about the project, so all the benefited party can get the information and access them easily. Also there is an e-mail dedicated to the project for all the parties to send their feedback about the project or if they have any issue regarding the training. In addition, the team developed monthly newsletter that will be circulated via e-mail to all stakeholders. Major milestones about the project are also presented in press, radio, and TV shows. The marketing plan for the project is been implemented and more focus to the targeted group is given in it. -High dropout rate We could start a class with 35 people and end up with only 8 people at the end of the course. To avoid this ITA is now inducing and incentive scheme for the civil servant, where they can benefit from other projects like the PC initiative (they can get subsidiary for laptops) and specialized training project (they can get more specialized courses). -Selection of CKC locations The official locations of the CKC could not be determine early which affected the implementation programme of the Community IT Training programme.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The financing came from the ITA business plan budget, the team was recruited from the market, project manager has an experience of more than 10 years, quality assurance specialist experience of more than 9 years, admin specialist experience more than 4 years, and new graduate students who handle the financial issues of the project. After signing the contract the budget allocation was done by the finance department, and it was distributed to 3 years the life of the project. The human resource where oriented to the project and the stakeholders and they started their jobs immediately.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The project will make a sustainable development in the community, the people who will learn they will transfer their knowledge to their families and their society. The teachers will transfer the knowledge and skills to the students and from them to the public indirectly. The learning process will continue and more and more people will be engaged in advance training programs. There is a huge transfer of knowledge through this project; an international expertise will be impeded to the market through the Omanis who will work in the project. The trainers will go to the market as entrepreneurs who will find their ways in the Omani market, establishing new business that one day was not done by Omani.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Any national project need a full collaboration form all stakeholders, the communication aspects and unification of goals is a critical success factor in such project that involve more than 100,000 people. There should be a pig marketing plan before and during the project, the entire targeted group should know what to expect and what is expected from them. National wide project require huge effort for coordination and logistics, having teams in each and every major area helping and facilitating the process of the project will save lots of hassles. Engagement of stakeholders from the planning phase of the project will save lots of time during the implementations and will save lots of money making changes. New and advance technology might be good for civilized areas, but it need to be introduced very carefully to people who are not much exposed to technology in rural areas so they don’t get Culture shocks.


Institution Name:		Information Technology Authority
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Abdullah Al Abri
Title:		Specilaist
Telephone/ Fax:
Institution's / Project's Website:
E-mail:		abdullah.alabri@ita.gov.om
Address:
Postal Code:
City:
State/Province:
Country:		Oman

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information