Public service training college launched

More than 60 young people will benefit from training at the newly launched Bertram Collins College of the Public Service as part of efforts to improve the public service, GINA said.  Minister of State, Joseph Harmon told the cadets that they were the faces that would represent the improvements that are being made in the public sector at yesterday’s launch of the Bertram Collins College of the Public Service held at the Department of Public Service, D’Urban Street and Vlissengen Road.

Part of the initial batch (GINA photo)
Part of the initial batch (GINA photo)

“You are the ones that we are relying on to make the face of the public service different than it was many, many years ago,” Harmon told the 17 to 21- year old cadets, according to GINA.

The one-year cadet programme is designed to ensure that entry level public servants have the “expert knowledge and a high level of intelligence that is needed to carry out their functions,” Senior Executive Director of the college, Retired Colonel Lawrence Paul stated.

Cadets will receive formal and informal training in 17 areas in preparation for public service. Paul said there will also be visits and attachments to public institutions, GINA reported.

“The visits and attachments are meant to better prepare the cadets to take up their assigned roles in public service and widen their understanding of the structure and function of public institutions, but more importantly they should be able to understand how Guyana works and should better appreciate why they should dispense their duties with integrity, impartiality and objectivity,” the Ret’d Colonel stated.

The physical college will eventually be established at the Guyana Sugar Corporation’s (GuySuCo) headquarters in Ogle, East Coast Demerara.