Questions/Answers

The Union Civil Service Board is the Union Level Government Organization for the Myanmar civil service personnel under the direct supervision of the President to perform the duties of recruitment, selecting, promotion and training of the civil services personnel and prescribing of civil service regulations. Among these tasks, the UCSB mainly focused to transforming and scaling up the education and training of Myanmar civil service for strengthening innovation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which aims: - to improve the capacity of civil service personnel aimed at empowering the country with Good Governance, Clean Government, Transparency, Efficiency and Effectiveness in Myanmar; - to encourage creativity and innovation in order to improve the quality of public service delivery and the work of public sector institutions in Myanmar to enhance effectiveness and transparency; - to support the realization of the Sustainable Developments Goal and the implementation of the reformation of the state and to work out the policies of the government as well as to assist the formulation of the Government’s policy; - to introduce not only for UNPSA but also for sharing our experiences and innovative change to be adaptable to other public sector institutions within a given country, region or at the global level. - to support the Myanmar Government in achieving its vision of being a people-centered, ethical, responsive and merit-based civil service in the future; - to review and modernize civil service training programmes as the innovative way; - to introduce results-based management practices that promote meritocracy, ethics, transparency, accountability and inclusiveness; - to improve civil servant’s performance through enhanced leadership and motivation; and - to foster public service delivery and accountability at national and sub-national level.

Our initiative is “Transforming and Scaling up Education and Training of Myanmar Civil Service for Strengthening Innovation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” which is aligned with the Category (3) : Developing Transparent and Accountable Public Institutions. This transforming activity can provide opportunities that enhance knowledge, skills and attitudes to become independent, efficient, competent and disciplined civil service personnel for the sustainable all round development of the Nation under the UCSB’s Civil Service Reform Agenda. According to this initiative, individuals not only trainees but also trainers gain the required knowledge and build faith in their ability and can support to reach the Quality Service Delivery which can raise the trust of the people upon Civil Service Institutions.

This initiative activity support to Sustainable Development Goals 16 to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels and support to the target 16.6 to develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all level. In each and every country, the delivery of government services has been provided to the people through civil services. The civil service discharges this duty in the modes of direct participation, regulations and advocacy. To be align with the 2030 Agenda, Myanmar attaches great importance to the improvement of Civil Service aimed at empowering the country with Good Governance, Transparency, Efficiency and Effectiveness. In the New Democratic Government of Myanmar, civil servants are accountable to the Government, and must act with integrity, professionalism, intelligence and dynamism in delivering the government’s administrative system. These new expectations cannot be met through organizational restructuring alone: mindset change is also required which needed to provide innovative training strategy. Thus, the UCSB conducts this transforming activity in order to promote and encourage change within a team, organization or community.

In order to achieve the sustainable Development Goals, Government need to introduce not only Political, Economic and Social Reforms as well as Civil Service Reform. This initiative has significant impact as positively reflect the political and institutional environment of a country as well as political support also increases. From this initiative, it learned that choosing right transforming and scaling up education and training of civil service approach is very important activity for civil servants not only to promote transparency and accountability in public institutions but also to grow more political support and will. Other social impacts are increasing alignment with workforce needs, entrepreneurial skills and skills that drive innovation and new job development for the knowledge economy, female participation and fostering cross cultural understanding.

The initiative of transforming and scaling up training and education of Myanmar civil service has addressed a significant shortfall, which is Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Now is the era of Industrial 4.0, ICT is a direct and profound enabler for transformed learning environments. Supported by effective policies, professional development, and digital curriculum, trainers/instructors gain the information to deliver an academically ICT provides valuable tools and data for creating a more transparent, evidence-based culture. ICT also provides cost-effective tools to help increase collaboration, and build trust and community through transparent communications. ICT in training and education can increase efficiency and provide new ways to work. Trainers/instructors can reduce isolation and share best practices through online communities of practices and self-paced professional learning. Digital tools can offer efficient ways to organize and manage courses, content, assessments, grades, and other data. Digital learning resources can reduce the costs of textbooks while offering access to more timely content. Acceleration to become agile civil service in Digital Economy can promote Good Governance and public administration in every country.

Referring to the Myanmar’s commitment on gender equality and women’s empowerment, our initiative not only focus to support quality service delivery in achieving a people-centered, ethical, responsive and merit-based civil service in the future but also to emphasis how and why gender equality in the decision making. The development of Training and Education may promote ethics and equal opportunities through specific training modules.

The two CICSs under the UCSB is now conducting eight different types of training courses which mainly targets not only to Government Officials and Staffs but also to the person from private sector. Specifically, we would like to mention that Management Course for Executive Level Officials targets to Permanent Secretary / Director General/ Managing Director / Deputy Permanent Secretary/ Deputy Director General, Management Course for Senior Level Officials targets to Assistant Permanent Secretary/ Director / General Manager, Management Course for Mid-Level Officials: Advanced Diploma in Civil Service Management Course (ADCSM) targets to Deputy Director/ Assistant Director / Assistant General Manager, Basic Pre-service Course for Civil Service Officers: Postgraduate Diploma in Civil Service Management Course (PGDCSM) targets to newly appointed Gazette Officer and Person from Private Sector, Basic Course for Civil Service Officers targets to Staff Officer (In Service), Basic Course for Junior Civil Service targets to Deputy Staff Officer (Non-Gazette Officer), Enhance Course for Office Supervisors targets to Office Supervisors (Non-Gazette Officer) and Basic Course for Clerical Staff targets to Clerical Staff (Non-Gazette Officer). The initiative of transforming and scaling up training and education will improve the core values of civil service personnel and develop transparency, responsibility and accountability civil service sector as well.

According to transformation agenda, the first step, we established the Civil Services Academy on 2nd January 2017 at the respective CICS to nurture more efficient, qualified and skillful civil service personnel. The vision of the UCSB for the CSA is to become a viable institution in the Myanmar context and to become internationally recognized. After that, the UCSB reviewed our training approach to redefine our training and capacity building approach as well as revised the curriculum as academic approach. Thus, the UCSB tried to shorten training times and made them more efficient instead cutting some programs in half. On the other hand, we reduce the training programme as the eight different types for different level of civil service personnel from the various training courses in the previous times. Under the training paradigm shift, the UCSB has lunched two approaches as a new training strategy such as “Education and Academic Approach” and Competency and Training Approach”. After that, Seven Academic Departments have been well organized under the CSA such as Department of Management Studies, Department of Economics Studies, Department of Political Science, Department of Social Science, Department of Law, Department of Information and Communication Technology and Department of English. The Civil Services Academy confers two types of diploma: Postgraduate Diploma in Civil Service Management Course (4 months) and Advanced Diploma in Civil Service Management (5 months) as well as awards to the outstanding trainees as the Outstanding Award, Literature Award and Distinction Award. Moreover, the UCSB has already developed the course specifications and curriculum structure for each training courses by organizing with the Course Information, Aim of the Civil Service Training, Objectives of the Course, Intended Learning Outcomes, Teaching Methods, Criteria for Assessment, Prize Awarded as well as Evaluation and Feedback System. The feedback are also collected from trainees as Module Assessment, Course Assessment, Assessment on Administrative Support, Committee Wise Method, and also feedback are also collected from trainers and stakeholders (such as line Ministry, Local and International Expert, etc.). The results of feedback are considered by the Management Review Committee which is led by Rector in order to monitor and evaluate training program as well as the whole initiative.

In the previous times, there are various training courses based on semi-regimental approach under the two CICSs which include Military subject. In the transforming activity, we withdrew this subject by negotiating with Ministry of Defense as well as Ministry of Home Affairs and resend their staffs to the focal Ministry. This is a great effort and very big challenges among the UCSB and concerned Ministries. Another obstacle is Information and Communication Technology (ICT), as now is the era of Industrial 4.0, ICT is a direct and profound enabler for transformed learning environments as well as supported by effective policies, strong professional development, and digital curriculum are also still needed. It is not stress-free transforming processes and learned and solved challenges related to knowledge gaps, insufficient skillful instructors, limited financial support, limited inter-sectoral cooperation, etc.

In order to achieve the effective transforming and scaling up education and training, this initiative activity introduced the innovative methods for every training course as reviewing the Intended Learning Outcomes, modernizing the Teaching Techniques, conducting Evaluation and Feedback System, standardizing Assessment Criteria (Leadership, Active Participation, Discipline and Moral, Work Related Skills and Mutual Assessment). Innovative training covers both enhancing the creative potential of individuals and developing their understanding of the organization with innovative practices. This initiative has significance impact which not only to strength of transparency and accountability in public institutions and improve delivery of public services in innovative way but also to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Myanmar is one of the ASEAN Member Countries, thus, we are cooperating and participating civil service matters under the ASEAN Cooperation on Civil Service Matters (ACCSM). Under this cooperation, we learnt modern education and training practices and teaching methodologies for civil service training among member states. On the other hand, we sent our staffs to abroad especially not only in ASEAN countries but also in China, Japan, Korea as study tour program in order to promote exchange knowledge as well as to learn what are best practices of their civil service training approach and how do they manage the sustainable development of their transformation system. On the other hand, international organizations are also deeply support in order to change the teaching technique, review and revise curriculum and syllabus. Based on these practices, we developed our initiative of transforming and scaling up training and education for Myanmar Civil Service.

The initiative has not been transferred and adapted to other context yet.

We need more capacity enhancement, strong professional development, effective training strategies and policies as well as more digitalized in order to transfer / adapt to other contexts.

For this initiative activity, financial support was provided by the Government Budget. Main resources of this initiative are human resources as the instructors who have been working at the Civil Services Academy of each Central Institute of Civil Service under the guidance of the Chairman of the UCSB. . In addition, the UCSB well organized the University Advisory Board, Technical Working Group (TWG) and Training Needs Analysis (TNA) Task Force with the help of expertise from Ministry of Educations, Local Experts from different Universities of Myanmar to review and revise the curriculum and syllabus. The crucial needs for training sector are to be available resource persons and experts with well-experienced on the specific fields from local and abroad in order to deliver lectures at these training programmes. Therefore, the UCSB have good relationship with International Organizations to be able to collaborate and cooperate in the arenas to get experts and other assistances.

To make sustainable progress, we have to incorporate digital technologies and curriculum in ways. This means that, even we see enough successful initiatives but this requires a comprehensive approach and effective change management across the initiative system. It takes modern policies and strong leader-ship at every level to bring stakeholders together and develop a training strategy that is both visionary and practical. It calls for effective technologies and support systems, and sustainable funding to make sure programs can continue to advance. As resource persons are also crucial issues for the training programme, we need to extend cooperation and collaboration not only Ministries and Organizations but also international organizations.

Yes

In order to see the different objectives, this evaluation applies different frameworks and uses a variety of both quantitative and qualitative methods. It applies minimum methodology such as comparative analysis, current descriptive situation of the training programmes which have been conducting at the Civil Services Academy of the two Central Institutes of Civil Service under the Union Civil Service Board. This evaluation is based on the secondary data sources. Each training courses have been evaluated by the Management Review Committee which is led by Rector. The overall organizational development has been evaluated by the Chairman and Members of the UCSB.

This evaluation applies comparative analysis, current descriptive situation of the training programmes which have been conducting at the Civil Services Academy of the two Central Institutes of Civil Service under the Union Civil Service Board as the tools. In case of the indicators, we use the eight different types of training programme, numbers of trainees who received Postgraduate and Advanced Diploma, numbers of Inter-departmental Seminars for own capacity development, policy and system implementation for the enhancement of training capacity, conducting the own capacity development programmes by organizing the inter-departmental seminars as well as ToT programmes in collaboration with international cooperation, redesigning the course specifications and curriculum structure in line with the international standards and milestones activities which have been successfully developed at the two CICSs under the UCSB.

The main findings of this initiative are as follow: - Inaugurating the Civil Services Academy (CSA) on 2nd January, 2017 at the respective CICS; - Restructuring the Organizational Structure of the two CICS by organizing seven academic departments under the CSA; - Reducing the various training courses to eight different types of training courses based on the levels of Position by combining the Educational and Academic Approach and Competeny and Training Approach aiming to enhance the capacity development of the civil servant especially in the area of management and leadership; - Conferring two types of diploma: Post-Graduate Diploma in Civil Service Management Course (4 months) conducted 6 times and conferred the degree to the total trainees 1586 and Advanced Diploma in Civil Service Management Course (5 months) conducted 4 times and conferred the degree to the total trainees 583 from 2017-2019; - Developing the Course Specifications and Curriculum Structure for each training courses by organizing with the Course Information, Aim of the Civil Service Training, Objectives of the Course, Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs), Teaching Methods, Criteria for Assessment, Prize Awarded and Evaluation and Feedback System; - Conducting 27 times of Inter-departmental Seminars till August 2019 as the knowledge sharing programmes; - Enacting Civil Service Training Policy (2018), Myanmar Civil Service System (2019), Quality Management System (2018); and - Becoming the membership of the International Association of Schools and Institute of Administration (IASIA) in 2018.

We did the integrated manner within the institutional landscape as well as different level of government organization under the transforming initiative activity. Now, we are conducting eight different types of training courses for different positions of civil service personnel such as Executive Level Officials, Senior Level Officials, Mid-Level Officials, Gazette Level Officials/Staff Officers as well as Non-Gazette Level Officials from different Ministries and Organizations, thus, we send the official letters to all Ministries and Organizations in order to know the name of participants for concerned training as the cooperation and collaboration among Government Ministries and Organizations. On the other hand, when we conduct the training programme, the lecture was delivered not only by instructors from two CICSs but also by Executive Level Officials from other Ministries and Organizations in order to deeply discuss the subject matters concerning the Economics, Anti-corruption, Legal Issues, Political Issues, etc. In this case, we have to request to the other Ministries and Organizations to deliver the lectures as the cross-sectoral cooperation. Moreover, CSA aims to enhance the capacity not only for the civil service personnel but also for staffs from private sectors as Public, Private Partnership. to get mutual understanding upon work nature and to understand that the role of staffs from private sector is very crucial for the national development.

For the designing of the transforming and scaling up training and education under the reform agenda which include modernizing teaching method, reviewing and revising training curriculum, redesigning course specification, local and foreign experts from international organizations as well as Government Ministries and Organizations especially from Ministry of Education in Myanmar were engaged deeply. The Civil Services Academy aims to enhance the capacity not only for the civil service personnel but also for staffs from private sectors of private bank, private company as Public, Private Partnership to get mutual understanding upon work nature and to understand that the role of staffs from private sector is very crucial for the national development. In the previous times, there are various training courses based on semi-regimental approach which include Military subject. In the transforming activity, we withdrew this subject by negotiating with Ministry of Defense as well as Ministry of Home Affairs and resend their staffs to the focal Ministry. This is a great effort and very big challenges among the UCSB and concerned Ministries. On the other hand, when we conduct the training programme, the lecture was delivered not only by instructors from CSA but also by Executive Level Officials from other Ministries and Organizations in order to deeply discuss the subject matters concerning the Economics, Anti-corruption, Legal Issues, Political Issues, etc. In this case, we have to request to the other Ministries and Organizations to deliver the lectures as the cross-sectoral cooperation.

When a public-oriented administration system will be introduced in the country, knowledge and experiences gained from the training programme are needed to be effectively used for the development of the country. The crucial needs for training sector are resource persons with well-experienced on the specific fields from local and abroad, Executive, Senior and Middle Level Officials, Short Training Courses and Training of Trainers programmes for Trainers/ Faculty members and study visit to the civil service organizations of foreign countries. The main challenges of training institutes are lack of pool of expert, technical expert (Exposure of International training in abroad), recruitment of talent faculty member and financial support. The main target of the UCSB for the improvement of Transforming and Scaling up Training and Education is to become the “Civil Service Training Year 2020” with the theme as “Learning and Development”. To be effective, individuals must then gain the required knowledge and build faith in their ability to change. Once these new behaviors are internally and externally reinforced, the change is more likely to sustain itself. The UCSB plans ambitiously to conduct a series of activities under its theme: Learning and Development that can ensure to promote training strategy.