THE Director General (DG) of the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON), Mr. Ajibade Peters, has harped on the need for constant training as a veritable tool for manpower development in Nigeria's public sector.Peters said the repositioning of Nigeria's public service would invariably result in tremendous gains for the country's economy, especially in the present era where the world was shifting to a knowledge-based economy. On the flipside, the ASCON DG pointed out that a poorly trained public service personnel would inevitably become a stumbling block to the growth and development of the Nigerian economy.Peters made the declaration at therecent closing ceremony of a two-week regular course, organised by ASCON for its recent batch of 58 participants in Lagos.While noting that the world was gradually shifting to a knowledge based economy, Peters emphasised that Nigeria must join the group of nations that have been reshaping their public service systems for effectiveness and efficiency.He said: 'The implication of this radical departure from the past is that, success in this new world of increasing competition is largely becoming dependent on the quality of knowledge which individuals and organisations are able to apply to key business processes.'Peters noted that there couldn't be a better way to guarantee results than to make premium investments in human capital which heads the entire process of businesses. He continued: 'we live in an era that is replete with unprecedented changes, and we need well trained, intellectually sound and equipped workforce to be able to deliver the dividends of democracy.'In this connection, the knowledge and skills of public servants at all levels of government need to be updated, while they need to be exposed to 'best practices' in management to prepare them not only to cope with the demands of today's environment, but to face the unpredictable future.'The training encompasses five courses namely: train the trainer; human resources management; database management; advanced recordsmanagement and advanced financial management. The courses offered were meant to serve as a platform for which each group would belong.Furthermore, the ASCON boss was of the view that the quality of public service provided by government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) was one of the defining features of economic growth and modernization,as this has a direct impact on a country's economic fortunes, social integration and living standards.He explained that the quality of core services in such areas as power supply, security, healthcare, education, and others, which are critical to creating an enabling environment for the private sector to strive, would be determined by the level of investment in human resources of public organisations.The DG admonished the participants to make best use of the skills they have learnt in the college. He also called on them to efficiently discharge their responsibilities and make meaningful contributions towards government's drive to ensuring that the dividends of democracy were delivered to the people.According to Adeniyi Tunde, one of the course participants, the training 'is a rewarding one.' He said there was a need for training and retraining of staff of government establishments for better quality service delivery.'Here in ASCON, they have been able to achieve that. They have exposed us to more unique techniques of e-payment, monitoring and evaluation, cost benefit analysis, and a lot of other new things like the new Procurement Act. We were exposed to core areas during the course of the programme. ASCON has done a very good job. The staff of the college is very committed. They update their knowledge daily and because of this, they are able to impact more on the participants.'I am recommending ASCON to all organisations for the training and retraining of their administrative personnel so that they would be able to help in the delivery of quality services.
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