Institute prepares for event

By ZARA KANU LEBO

THE Somare Institute of Administration and Governance (Silag) is gearing up for its inaugural graduation since its name change in 2023.
The event, scheduled for today, will see more than 500 graduates in various certificate and diploma courses offered at the main campus and more than 200 others at the regional centres around the country at their own schedules.
The graduation will see 11 heads of government departments graduating with an advanced diploma in government in leadership and management among other certificate and diploma courses, which is part of Silag taking into effect the reform priority that all public servants from the auxiliary level to departmental heads must be qualified for government workforce.
In an interview with The National, Silag chief executive officer Michael Barobe said: “We have got a National Executive Council (NEC) endorsed policy called a sustainable, stable and systematic public sector training.
“Based on that policy, we have developed a course called the advanced diploma of government in leadership and management and that course based on mainly developing partnership with the Australian National School of Government and the Canberra Institute of Technology, then we bring those courses in context into the PNG standard.
“We have also gone to the Department of Personnel Management and collected job descriptions of departmental heads.
“We put our training programmes into the thematic areas and these are mainly about jobs that departmental heads are required to do so based on that policy, we have realigned the qualification framework up to a degree in government,” he said.
“The certificate two programme, is designed for public servants who have newly joined and are not familiar with government functions and for university graduates up to a PhD level, they are given certificate three induction courses before entering the government workforce.
“The certificate four is designed for senior and middle management level.
“The certificate four, which offers generic courses in finance, accounting, human resource and public policy is a guided pathway to a work in progress compulsory degree programme in 2027 when the institute announces its university status.
“So before the public service workforce appointments are being made, they have to be sent here to be trained so that they qualify and go back to do their jobs.
“We are now looking at amending the Public Service Management Act and we have conducted two consultative workshops and got positive feedback. It is now before the State solicitors before it can become law in the next parliament.
“Anyone who works from the public service from tea boy up to departmental head and are on the Alesco government payroll, must have a certification from Silag, which means that you must know the government before becoming part of the Government.
“So because the NEC policy is making way for Silag certificate to be compulsory to be employed by the public service, it is ensuring that more people are qualified and we reform the public service through our programmes.”