Spanish tutoring for all public servants this year

Starting from this year, the Ministry of Public Service will be moving to offer Spanish tutoring to every public servant while another 2,000 persons will benefit from Information Technology (IT) training.

The initiative forms part of the ministry’s effort to ensure that citizens are equipped with the necessary knowledge in keeping with the ongoing development in the country.

Speaking at her ministry’s end-of-year press conference on Friday, Minister of Public Service Sonia Parag said training will be done in partnership with US-based online course provider, Coursera.

She said training is expected to commence in March and will run for a period of 16 months.

“We are now partnering. It is scheduled to start around March and it will run for just about 16 months or just about there. This is where we will advertise. Persons would be able to apply through an online process and Coursera has their requirements for the programme as well,” Parag said.

Noting that the trainings will not be mandatory, Parag said public servants are being encouraged to utilise the opportunity.

“It is to ensure that public servants…we are taking a course of development as well as modernisation so we want to be able to have public servants not being left back because you are dealing with public and you are also having to do so much online that we are kicking up the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) training as well as the development programmes,” Parag explained.

Currently, there are over 54,000 persons in the public sector.

“We have been making Spanish mandatory in schools…We don’t want to be placing that on adults…but I know a lot of public servants they are very eager to get onboard and learn another language.

“There isn’t a cutoff point as it relates to how many public servants. All of them could come on,” Parag noted.