Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has stressed the need for the rethinking of the training of public servants as a part of the reform to properly prepare the sector for the Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolutions.

Olaopa spoke yesterday in Abuja during a courtesy visit to him by the Administrator of the Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN), Imeh Okon, and her management team.

According to Olaopa, the training of public servants in a bid to reprofessionalise them would be meaningless if it were not impactful.

To him, one major way to make the training impactful is to make it a part of performance for career progression, as in the military.

Explaining the importance of the visit, Olaopa said that in view of the relevance of the manpower development institutes (MDIs), generally called government training institutions, it became necessary for leaders of the civil service to interact with their managers.

He said the need for such interactions was reinforced by his decades of research on reform to professionalise the civil service.

Olaopa noted that such professionalisation would be done through training that would pave the way for skills upgrade to align with globally benchmarked professional skills for running the business of government, as revised to accommodate new skills demands of the knowledge age.

According to him, training also ensures the rethinking of the intellectual bases of work and the world of work which underscores the deepening of the professionalisation of cadres, which has already been done in procurement and ICT, while that of HRM is ongoing like planning, research and statistics departments to make them strategic partners in taking policy work in government and the policy process to the next level.

Noting that the FCSC was concerned with issues tied to reform to restore competency-based human resource and career management with strict merit-based and federal character policy compliant as order of business, Olaopa underscored the relevance of training and capacity development.

While noting the crucial roles of the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON) and PSIN in the development of government workers, he, however, cautioned against the duplication of the functions of the two institutes

Earlier, the administrator of the PSIN said the visit should have been done earlier, as Olaopa was a critical stakeholder.

Okon gave two reasons for the visit, which were to introduce the team to Olaopa and to build a partnership with him.