Peter Knight visited  Bahrain for two weeks in November-December 2004 to prepare a draft action plan to implement a system of e-learning for the CSB. The consultancy was financed by the UNDP office in Bahrain.

Here are some photos taken during the presentations made to the meeting, followed by a summary of the draft action plan.

Mahmood Al-Toblani, CSB Director of Training and Development, discusses the proposed action plan with Ahmed Abdullatif Al-Bahar, Undersecretary for the Civil Service Bureau	Civil Service Bureau Managers and Staff at the presentation of the draft action plan
Mahmood Al-Toblani (CSB), Mohammed Al- Sharif (UNDP), Ali Khalfan (CSB), Mahdi Al- Madhoob (UNDP), and Mohammed Hasan Al-Sabbah (CSB)	Peter Knight presenting the proposed action plan at the CSB

Executive Summary

The report begins with review of some international experience with e-training of national and international civil services. It then looks at the emerging e-Bahrain vision, and the vision, strategy, implementation approach, and benefits envisaged for Bahrain’s e-government. Important developments consistent with these visions and strategies are reviewed, including the CIO’s six major e-government projects, the Ministry of Education’s Future Schools Program, the University of Bahrain’s new e-Learning Center, the Ministry of Commerce’s dynamic e-Commerce Directorate and Bahrain Investors’ Center, and the Ministry of Health’s e-Health projects. 

The absence of a central policy-making body for Bahrain’s e-Development more broadly, and e-government more specifically is a problem. There is not yet a single portal for accessing e-government services – some but not all ministries and government agencies have their own home pages. It is recommended that such a central body, located at a high level of government above the ministries and other agencies – and including representatives of the private, academic, and NGO (e.g. the Bahrain Internet Society) sectors – be created. It should have the authority to further develop and coordinate implementation of Bahrain’s e-government strategy as part of a broader socio-economic development strategy to promote the growth and competitiveness of Bahrain’s increasingly knowledge-based economy, currently led by the rapidly-growing financial sector.

It is within the broader vision of e-Bahrain and Bahrain’s e-government vision and strategy that the CSB should develop its e-training program. The CSB’s training objectives should be to help civil servants become proficient knowledge workers performing effectively and productively to improve service delivery, increasingly through e-government services, to keep pace with the country’s changing demands. It is vital to upgrade the current civil service work force of some 35,000, the overwhelming majority of whom have not experienced e-learning, and sometimes are not even computer literate. Without e-training it will be difficult modernize the existing work force and to recruit new staff graduating from schools and universities already accustomed to e-learning.

The proposed vision for CSB’s e-training program is to blend the maximum feasible amount of e-training with traditional classroom training. Civil servants would take primary responsibility for implementation of annual training programs developed in consultation with their managers as part of their annual performance evaluations. Training modules/courses incorporated into individual training plans would be related to well-defined competencies required for current and desired future jobs, and fully integrated with CSB systems for pay, transfer between jobs, promotion, and termination and incorporated into the Oracle Horizon human resource management system (HRMS).

Phase 1 of the proposed e-training program, to be implemented in the first six months of 2005, is devoted to the elaboration of a detailed business plan and budget for implementing the subsequent two stages of the plan, which would culminate in a fourth phase, full realization of the proposed vision. UNDP could support the development of this business plan by providing specialized consultants.  Phase two, covering the 12-months ending in June 2006, contains 14 specific actions, including three separate pilot e-training programs, and would prepare the way for a more intensive rollout of 50 fully online and 25 blended e-training courses over the period July 2006-December 2007, with full linkage to the Oracle HRMS, and then full implementation of the program beginning in 2008. A very rough estimate of the cost for Phases 1-3 is BD3.3 million, but this estimate should be greatly refined in Phase 1, which will cost less than BD15 thousand.

12 December 2004