NATION-WIDE SKILLS AUDIT EXERCISE ADVANCES
(Standing) Director of HIDA, Mr. Karake, giving introductory remarks. (Centre) Hon. Nshuti Manasseh, Minister of Public Service & Labour; and (Extreme Left) Mr.
Marc Kabandana, Director of RIAM
On 4th to 5th January 2006, the Ministry of Public and Labour (MIFOTRA) in close collaboration with the Human Resources and Institutional Capacity Development Agency (HIDA) organised a training workshop for focal points in filling the questionnaire to be used in the nation-wide skills audit. The workshop was held at Rwanda Institute of Administration and Management, Murambi Campus. Close to 300 designated focal points drawn from institutions in the public sector, private sector and civil society organisations attended the workshop. Mr. Charles Karake, Director; Mrs. Stella Mugabo, Human Resources Development Specialist and Mr. Peter Malinga, Information Education and Communication Specialist represented HIDA at the workshop.
TPricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), an international firm was contracted by Government through MIFOTRA with the support of HIDA to provide technical support to the ministry to conduct a nation-wide skills audit exercise and then prepare a comprehensive National Skills Development Policy. In this regard, PwC facilitated the two day training sessions. The workshop provided a platform for the focal points to discuss and agree on the content of the questionnaire which will be filled by various institutions across government.
In his introductory remarks, the Director of HIDA, Mr. Charles Karake explained the objective of the nation-wide skills audit. He pointed out that the skills audit is aimed at obtaining information on skills available, skills required and determining the skills gap in institutions across the public sector, private sector and civil society. Mr. Karake told the audience that the major challenge faced during the implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP 1) were capacity constraints. He said that in order to address this challenge, it was imperative to have accurate and reliable data from the skills audit to feed into the second generation of the PRSP, known as the Economic Development Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) so as to guide investments in skills development in all sectors of the economy. Mr. Karake concluded by advising participants to own and actively participate in the entire process of the audit exercise so as to attain the objectives of the exercise.
The Minister of Public Service and Labour, Prof. Nshuti P. Manasseh, officially opened the training workshop. In his opening speech, the Minister underscored that the workshop marked another milestone in the nation-wide skills audit exercise. He said that by training focal points from targeted institutions across all sectors, on how to fill questionnaires to be used in the skills audit exercise, this would ensure that data collected would be credible. He advised focal points to understand their role in the entire skills audit exercise and emphasized that institutional ownership is fundamental for the exercise to succeed. The Minister stressed that for any undertaking, the process is as important as the product, and if the process is not given due importance then one will not attain the desired product. He informed the audience that Government took a decision to conduct the nation-wide skills audit as a priority action in order to achieve the short term and long term objectives of the national development agenda. The Minister then challenged participants to ensure that the required information is packaged correctly and accurately.
Workshop in session
The training session attracted pertinent interventions from participants especially on issues regarding staff classification in various levels, sample size of respondents, sector groupings and contents as well as sequencing of questions in the training section of the questionnaire. Basing on the comments and input from the participants at the workshop, it was agreed that a revised questionnaire be prepared and circulated to all focal points on 9th January 2006. This workshop will be followed by focus group discussions in February 2006 where contents of the qualitative questionnaire will be shared.
The interim report of the nation-wide skills audit will be presented at a national stakeholder workshop in March 2006 for validation.
