European Standards in ICT Use for Public Administration in Romania

Acronym of the case:

ECDLforCivilServants

Web address of the case:

http://www.ecdl.org.ro/en/despre_ecdl.php

Country of the case:

Romania

City/region:

The project was implemented throughout Romania, involving 1287 public authorities.

Posting Date:

8 June 2012

Last Edited Date:

18 June 2012

Author:

Dimitris Theodorakis (ECDL Foundation)

ECDL ROMANIA | public administration | ICT Certification

Type of initiative

Project or service
Strategic initiative
Promotion/awareness campaign

Case Abstract

On 26 August 2009, the National Association of Civil Servants (NACS) in Romania initiated a nationwide project aimed at developing civil servants’ ICT skills. This ICT skills development project was carried out using the ECDL certification programme. The overarching aim of the project was to develop the ICT skills of civil servants at central and local public administrative levels. 12,000 civil servants were targeted and the ECDL certification programme was used formally as the standard for ICT training of civil servants by the Romanian Ministry of Public Administration.

Description of the case

Domain

eGovernment

Topic

Efficiency & Effectiveness, Benchmarking | Policy

Sector

Communication (infrastructure)

Date

August 2009 to February 2012

Date operational

August 2009

Target Users

Administrative

Target Users Description

The target users of this project were civil servants at central and local administrative levels in Romania. The project targeted 12,000 civil servants and participants varied between the ages of 25 and 54 years. In order not to disrupt the professional activities of the participants, training took place within the participants’ own places of employment, or as close as possible to them. The project was implemented on a national scale, throughout the Romanian territory. A total of 1287 public authorities were involved comprising 432 rural halls, 34 prefectures, 35 county councils, 151 City halls, and 635 local and central administration institutions.

Scope

Local (city or municipality) | National | Regional (sub-national)

Status

Ended

Language(s)

Romanian

Policy Context and Legal Framework

The Romanian Government, in its 2007-2013 Public Administration Reform Strategy, re-emphasised, among other actions, the strengthening of its units’ human capital and prioritised skills development especially in the ICT domain. On a European level, this prioritisation was incorporated in the Administrative Capacity Development Operational Programme for 2007-2013. The Romanian governmental authorities expressed interest in the ECDL programme as early as 2001 and the ECDL programme was endorsed by Government Resolution 1007/2001 and Order 252/2003 of the Ministry for Public Administration, which approved the Methodological Directions for the training and specialisation in ICT of civil servants. Consequently, a consistent public administration reform strategy had been implemented and ECDL was adopted as the standard for strengthening the institutional capacity of the structures within local and central public administrations. Training capacity measures are supported by the European Social Fund and the prior endorsement of ECDL certification programmes for civil servants’ ICT skills in particular, facilitated the ear-marking of funds at European level. The endorsement of ECDL certification programmes for civil servants’ ICT skills in Romania emerged from the realisation that there were significant deficiencies in the ICT skills of the latter. An analysis of civil servants’ skills at national level was carried out and the findings highlighted significant time losses due to inefficient use of computers and IT software applications, low levels of administrative efficiency and productivity due to the lack of appropriate skills, high costs associated with overuse of telephone services, low quality and slow provision of services to citizens and a low degree of motivation among civil servants due to poor ICT skills levels. In order to address the above limitations, ECDL certification was included as a key performance indicator, measuring the success of the reform efforts, in the public administration reform strategy for 2007-2013.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

Training and education

Overall Implementation approach

Partnerships between administration and/or private sector and/or non-profit sector

Technology choice

Not applicable/not available

Funding source

Public funding EU | Public funding national

Project size

Implementation: €1,000,000-5,000,000

Implementation and Management Approach

The project officially started in August 2009 and the initial phase consisted of a public tender for certification and training services by NACS. A launch conference was held on 30 November 2009 and a final conference, drawing the project to a close, was held on 14 February 2012. The project lasted 30 months in total. The winning tender company was SC Euroaptitudini SA, a pre-existing ECDL Accredited Test Centre. SC Euroaptitudini SA led a partnership of ECDL Accredited Test Centres to implement the project, which was supported by ECDL ROMANIA. In order to assess the civil servants’ varied levels of competence, a preliminary testing phase, consisting of an online questionnaire was conducted. The preliminary testing phase allowed the gathering of important information on the civil servants’ actual computer operating knowledge and their separation into groups of competence levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. The separation of participants into groups ensured the effective delivery of training services that met the participants’ needs and expectations. The main training delivery phase was carried out involving 168 ECDL trainers, who trained a total of 824 groups. Each group involved 10 to 15 candidates. The preliminary testing phase allowed the formation of the groups and their insertion into a special database, which facilitated the overall project management and permitted follow-up evaluation of the project. The formation of groups according to different competence levels was a clear success factor as it allowed effective training delivery according to specific group needs thus avoiding duplication and delays in the devised training paths. ECDL training and certification programmes started being effectively implemented from 29 November 2010 following the preliminary testing phase. The training courses followed the ECDL syllabus with 7 modules: Concepts of ICT, Using the Computers and Managing Files, Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Using Databases, Presentation, and Web Browsing and Communication. The training and testing took place in 20 pre-existing ECDL Accredited Test Centres and an additional 134 ECDL Test Centres that had been accredited specifically for the implementation of this project.

Technology solution

ECDL Foundation's certification programmes are designed, validated, and approved by academics and industry experts from around the world. ECDL Foundation has defined Quality Assurance Standards, which all national operators adhere to in the implementation and promotion of ECDL certification programmes. The national operators of ECDL programmes, and all accredited test centres within a country, are audited regularly.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

The initial target foresaw the certification of 75 % of the participants. The project led to the certification of 97.77 % of the civil servants who participated, a significantly higher result than the initial target. This high success rate proved the adequacy of the delivered training and the effectiveness of the implementation methods. The delivery of ECDL certificates, as an end-result in itself, proves that the training successfully impacted the participants’ competence levels in computer usage. Additionally, the project also evaluated the actual impact of ECDL training and certification. Over 400 participants were tested before and after the training and testing phases in order to evaluate their improvements in computer use. The time required for completing the test was improved by 62 %, denoting an increase in the ICT skills of the civil servants particularly with regard to time management and wasted resources on resolving computer and software related issues. For the evaluated participants, performance in completing the test was improved by 92 %, clearly highlighting an improvement in computer skills and increase in confidence. Furthermore, efficiency in successfully completing the test was improved by 89 %, designating the successful delivery of ECDL training which resulted in significant maximisation of transferred knowledge and effort inputs on behalf of the participants. User satisfaction with the project was significantly high and participants, after completing the training and testing phases, reported benefits such as less time spent in creating and managing documents, spread-sheets, databases, and presentations. Achieving an important and internationally-recognised certificate clearly added to the motivation and self-confidence of civil servants and resulted in enhanced communication between public administration institutions and citizens. ECDL training and testing contributed significantly to the improvement of the civil servants’ workflow with reported greater efficiency in task management and less time required in resolving administrative tasks. Overall, civil servants reported improved quality of work thanks to ECDL training, testing and ultimately, certification. The self-confidence in computer use by civil servants increased as exemplified in the following testimonial by Cosmin Sandu, ECDL Graduate Candidate: “I remember a quote in the beginning of the ECDL manual – Do you know how to use a computer? – At this time, I can firmly affirm that yes, I know.”

Track record of sharing

Central administrative authorities as well as regional and local authorities facing challenges due to a lack of basic computer skills of civil servants could greatly benefit and learn from this case. ECDL programmes can enable a person to become fully competent in the use of a computer, and can be adapted to account for local and regional needs. Internationally-recognised certificates prove to the employer that the civil servants hold the required skills to carry out their activities. Administrative and governmental authorities in Romania could benefit from engaging in ECDL training and testing for the remainder of the civil servants in Romania. This project was co-financed by the European Social Fund under the Operational Programme for Administrative Capacity Development 2007-2013, and its successful implementation is one example that this project could be replicated in countries engaged in the reform of their public administration sectors. The mechanisms for exchange, consist in the first instance of the recognition of poor digital literacy levels among civil servants and secondly, in the decision to engage in public administration reform addressing particularly the efficiency of civil servants.

Lessons learnt

ECDL certification provides a solution to the problem of insufficient ICT skills for public administrations.
The training of civil servants and the strengthening of their ICT skills constituted a pre-requisite for the successful roll-out of the engaged administrative reform. The training and certification of civil servants was the first step in addressing insufficiently skilled human capital in public administration and was essential in continuing the implementation of the administrative reform.
Through its endorsement of the ECDL programme, the Romanian Ministry of Public Administration has been successful in pursuing the necessary administrative reforms in a variety of governmental sectors with an assurance of high quality from the onset.
ECDL certification provided a clear measure for return on investment in the training; it served as an indicator of training quality as well as provided motivation for the employees to complete the training.

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