The project is aimed at improving effectiveness of municipal servants professional training by developing distance training courses that meet international standards and local needs. The Center of Vocational Training of Public Servants of Baikal State University of Economics and Law (Russia) needs to launch the new activity concerning the development of teaching materials for distance courses in the sphere of Territorial Development to offer more appropriate service to distant Siberian municipalities. The project will support Russian university staff’s professional development that enhance capacity to response to new trends toward more time- and costs-saving education and training.
Russian municipal servants need to modernise their knowledge in such contemporary spheres as Economics, Urban and Rural Development, Human Resource Management, Strategic Planning, Information Technology, Civil Service Management and so on. They also have to acquire the new set of skills, such as communications skills, skills of teamwork and negotiation, problem-solving abilities, computer skills and information gathering, analysis, and evaluation skills.
Realizing the importance of adopting a contemporary system of public servants training to bring up a new generation of Russian municipal servants with the knowledge of contemporary issues of Public Administration and Local Development and computer skills encouraged following universities and institutions came to the decision to design a project for distance training courses development, which enable to raise a quality of Siberian minicipal servants vocational training.
Goal and objectives of the project coincide with the development strategy of the project members and current training strategy for target group. There is a strong need in organising of dictance training and in highly qualified trainers enabled to deliver distance courses in the sphere of Territorial Development due to the absence of financing to provide municipal servants from distant municipalities with face-to-face training in the central regional city. Proper training of Siberian municipal servants with such qualification is possible only through constant development of distance training courses according to contemporary international standards (European, in particular) using methods and techniques of distance training materials development and delivery. There is also a great interest in training of trainers for delivery of distance training courses for municipal servants in Siberian municipalities because territorial development issues are quite urgent for underdeveloped distant Siberian municipalities but they don't have enough possibilities to acquire contemporary knowledge on constant base.
It must be specially pointed that almost none of public servants speaks any foreing languages. The level of computer literacy is high enough.
The goal of the project is:
To develop and launch distance vocational training system for training of municipal servants from distant Siberian municipalities in the sphere of Territorial Development according to European standards by December 2009.
The realization of Project goals will be of great interest of all Project partners. The activities towards the realization of main goal are planned to achieve the project outcomes and are planned in the following order.
The newly developed in-service distance training courses are supposed to strength the Siberian municipal administrations capacities to launch the terrirotial development process. Specialists and heads of departments (committees) or deputies of heads from at least 150 municipal administrations (rural districts and small and middle-sized cities located on 100-1000 km from the central city of the Irkutsk region) are target groups to be trained within the proposed project. Irkutsk Regional Administration is really interested in the realisation of the project because it is in charge with a development of municipal policy of the region and realisation of a municipal reform in the region. The Central Administrative Board on Municipal Affairs of Irkutsk Regional Administration is a special body of Irkutsk Regional Administration that is responsible for providing municipal administrations with consultancy and any other professional assistance. The Regional Administration has to sibsidize local budgets from the regional budget every year. The distance training system’s developing will allow poor municipalities spend less budget funds on the vocational training and redirect money saved to another important direction.
University of Debrecen ( Hungary), University of Paris-Sorbonne and Centre National de la Fonction Publique Territorial (France) have got an excellence experience in the sphere of vocational training, including the sphere of public servants training and upgrading. They offer a wide range of courses in the sphere of Territorial Development. The Association of Mayors of the Region Ile-de-France (France) is aimed to help its members to enhance their knowledge and skills through the exchange of their expertise in order to promote the places development. These organisations can share their excellent knowledge and experience with Baikal State University of Economics and Law and Irkutsk Regional Administration to assist them in developing effective distance vocational training system of Siberian municipal servants.
