By NIDRA KEWERE MAPI
THE National Department of Education must focus on their internal processes and practices to ensure that they are more customers focused.
And this means putting customers first, providing services in the way in which customers want at all times and offering excellent levels of services to everyone who deals with the National Department of Education.
This was said by Education Secretary Dr Joseph Pagelio at the official launching of the new Customer Focus Centre at Fincorp Haus at Waigani, Port Moresby yesterday.
Dr Pagelio said the launch was an important milestone in construction but importantly, the centre would now serve as the central point of contact for all customers, especially teachers.
He said this was a major change towards enhancing professionalism for public servants in the department who work in Fincorp Haus.
National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop said the teaching industry was a big part of the Government service provided for the people so the new centre was really needed, especially for the teachers.
He also stressed that all Government departments should have customer service centres set up to deal with customers complaints and queries.
The centre will start off with payroll queries using the new Alesco payroll system software with access to payroll and related staff queries.
This will allow the provision of information to customers on time within a secure environment.
This software will be made available to other provincial education centres in the country.
Dr Ian Cosier of the Education Capacity Building Project and project manager of the new centre said the objective of this new setup was to meet teacher’s demands so that they could be satisfied and would do their jobs well.
He added that it was also a new era in professionalism and that it aimed to be transparent with good governance and management.
The building of the centre was funded by AusAID at the cost of K300,000 and companies such as Brian Bell, Datec.
It was constructed by WAP & Co Ltd.