The Local Government Services (LGS) has launched training course dubbed “Enhanced Scheme of Service Traning” (SoST) aimed at sharpening the technical competencies, skills and attitudes of its staff.
Introduced in partnership with the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), the programme, acccording to the Director General of ILGS, Dr. Nicholas Awortwi, is expected to complement the changing local government services landscape.
This is because “the business of government and more specifically, the local government, has changed from that of administering instructions to providing and managing high quality local public services that cost less to public purse”, Dr. Nicholas Awortwi said.
The Enhanced SoST adds to an existing 98 courses the ILGS together with relevant stakeholders including office of District Assembly Common Fund and Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee on Decentralization (IMCC) have developed to meet the needs of the different professional classes of the service.
Dr. Nicholas Awortwi added that the introduction of the course is to help the service “remain on a transformational course and become more relevant to the local governance sector”.
Speaking on the mode of training, he said they will adopt “problem-based-learning and parnership for learning and practice approach.”
“That means we will bring the challenges in the delivery of local government service in the districrs to the classroom for analysis and provide plausible solutions back to the offices for implementation,” he explained.
This is expected to have an impact on the services of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and the Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs).
The introduction of the training is also to ensure that the system is changed into an incentive-based learning system.
Thus, promotion of the professional staff would be based on the completion of requisite training programme and the beneficiaries include career beginners, middle class level professional, senior management staff and senoir professional executives.
Speaking at the launch of the programme on February 2, 2022 at the Accra Campus of ILGS, the Minister for Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development urged the staff to take advantage of the training to enhance their professional competencies to meet the constant changing demands of the market.
“The world today is knowledge-based and demands on technocrats have been greater. In an atmosphere of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, public managers need to act more decisively and think more strategically.
“Today, you must possess a level of foresight, agility and resilience that our predecssors never imagined.” Mr. Dan Botwe stated.
“The SoST programme will prepare you to meet those demands and give you the knowledge, skills and competences to reach new career heights”, he added.
The Head of Local Government Service, Engineer Dr. Ato Arthur, appreciated his predecessors for coming up with the Scheme of Service Training, based on which his administration has introduced the “enhanced” version.
According to him, the SoST introduced earlier in 2013, could not be sustained because of the “absence of coherent and comprehensive approach as well as the absence of sustainability measure”.
“Although the needed results were not realised, we have ridden on the back of their experience to come to this far and i would like to salute them for their efforts” Ing. Dr. Ato Arthur said.
