Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 15th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview VII. Working Group on Capacity Building of Civil Servants... Author(s) Sorin Dan Sandor Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca Romania Tripon Ciprian, Ciprian Tripon, Veronica Junjan Title Public servants training in Romania: real needs and formal requirements File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Training of civil servants is one of the priorities of the reform of public administration. Legislation has been passed in order to address this issue, various projects have been implemented, but as an intermediate result one can note the general confusion regarding where, how, what and why such training should be undertaken. There is an almost dazzling range of options available for training, from few days of retreat to one-year programs, with differences between courses for management-level personnel or for rank and file. These courses are being offered in a large range of organizations, from private companies to Regional Training Centers functioning under the auspices of the National Institute of Administration and, last but not least, universities (both public and private). The “why “ question is partially answered by the legislation requirement according to which every civil servant should benefit from 7 days of training per calendar year and making it compulsory for public institutions to have a separate line-item for personnel training. Research Questions: 1. Who are the main providers of training? 2. What is their offer? 3. What are the needs of public servants? 4. What drives civil servants to training? 5. How good are those programs? 6. What is the usefulness of training? Methods: In order to conduct this investigation both qualitative and quantitative methods have been used. Document analyses was used to find the offer of training providers. Interviews were performed with managers of the Department of Public Administration of the Babes-Bolyai University an the Regional Center for Training for Civil Servants Cluj, and with former trainees. Focus groups were carried out with lecturers involved in offering these courses. Questionnaires and evaluation forms were analyzed for different cohorts of training programs and with former trainees. Results: Few systematic needs assessment studies are conducted in order to identify the training needs for civil servants. These needs seem to be limited to actualization of legislative provision, with little or no regard concerning developing and interdisciplinary background required by future challenges. Less attention was paid until recently to issues related to project management, which became “interesting” primarily because of absorption of EU funds. Rank influences motivation for training. Managerial personnel were required by law to obtain a master level degree until 2006 in order to maintain their position. Operational personnel seized the opportunity to follow a master level course in order to secure their position and as a means to protect for future personnel cuts. Choice of institution where the course should be followed was influenced by factors such as relative distance to home, reputation of institution, and, last but not least, preferences of other colleagues. Curricula offered by the institutions were used as a selection criterion only in few situations. There is little evidence that training programs succeed to provide personal and institutional benefits for the trainees. Conclusions: Systematic studies are needed from national and regional level in order to identify the existent needs for personnel training. The national policy regarding training (and arguably continuous education) for civil servants needs to be streamlined. Active measures need to be taken in order to offer courses which answer not only present needs but also future challenges.
