PERMANENT Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Youth, Maria Jones, has urged graduates of the Management Institute for National Development (MIND), to apply their newfound knowledge and qualification to enhance the new public sector.

Jones, who delivered the main address at a graduation ceremony at MIND recently, encouraged the graduates to make the link “between your new education, knowledge and power, and your responsibility to build the new Jamaica, and more specifically, the new public sector”.

Noting that a “strong and professionally functioning public sector holds a country together”, Jones pointed out that the Public Sector Modernisation Vision and Strategy 2002-2012 has been introduced to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the sector, in order to help the country compete better on the global platform.

With human resource capacity-building as an area of priority, training has been integral to the Public Sector Modernisation Programme.

This is being done to create a public sector that effectively “translates visions and needs into policies, policies into programmes and objectives into goals, goals into actions and actions into results that should matter to people and meet the needs of our country”, she said.

Jones further appealed to graduates not to squander their training on administrative trivia, underperformance or non-performance.

Stressing that the demands on the new public servant were very high, she encouraged them to “form good work habits, avoid mediocrity and emulate examples of outstanding performance”.

On the application of up-to-date Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and its critical value to improving efficiency and productivity, Jones told the graduating class that “the qualification that you acquire at this graduation is worthless in today’s public sector if you are still computer-illiterate”.

She said that ICT simplified transactions between government and citizens, and public servants should aspire to have above basic knowledge of how to use modern technological resources.

CEO of MIND, Ruby Brown, encouraged the graduates to continually commit time and financial resources to lifelong learning, while critically analysing to determine where they have significant competency gaps, and use the information to inform their lifelong learning plan.

She stressed the value of lifelong learning to today’s public sector and highlighted the fact that, as the Government of Jamaica’s management training institute, MIND has embraced the concept.

Brown also noted that the Institute continuously reviewed and upgraded courses through feedback from its clientele to ensure currency, relevance and maximum effectiveness.

Approximately 70 people completed the post-graduate diploma course in General Management, associate degrees in Management Studies (via MIND Online), Accounting, and Human Resource Management, as well as Diploma Courses in Human Resource Management, Government Accounting Level 3, and Certificate in Administrative Management Level 4.

Graduates also emerged from the Certificate in Management Studies, and the Certificate in Public Administration programmes offered by MIND and the University of the West Indies.

MIND – the primary public sector training agency in the island – offers a wide range of courses and training services to both public and private sector organisations.

It offers flexible learning schedules, and facilitates comfortable fee payments through its affordable rates and pay-as-you-learn easy payment plan.

– JIS