Review and Analysis
of
Foreign Training - 2001
DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL RESOURCES
Ministry of Policy Development and Implementation
Sri Lanka
Contents Page
Chapter 1 - Introduction 1
1.1 Role of External Resources Department (ERD) 2
1.2 Data Collection for the ERD Training Review 2
1.3 ERD Database on Foreign Training 3
Chapter 2 - Classification of Foreign Training 4
2.1 Duration of Foreign Training 4
2.2 Channelling Procedure for Training 5
Chapter 3 - Summary of Training offers 7
3.1 Training Offers by Duration 7
3.2 Training Offers Classified by Channelling Procedure 8
Chapter 4 - Training Offers Classified by Donor 9
4.1 Donor Classification 9
4.2 Top 10 Donors 10
4.3 Top Five Donors of the Period 1998/2001 11
Chapter 5 - Distribution of Training Offers 12
5.1 Main Recipient Ministries 12
5.2 Other Recipient Ministries 14
Chapter 6 - Constraints at ERD 15
6.1 Late Submissions 15
6.2 Incomplete Applications 15
6.3 Under Qualified Applicants 15
6.4 Matching the Requirements 16
6.5 Notification of Selections 16
6.6 Air-fare 16
6.7 Essential Information of the Nominee 16
6.8 Direct Applications 16
Annex 1 - Distribution of Training offers by Ministries/Agencies 17
URL - http://www.erd.gov.lk/documets/distribution of training offers by participants.
Tables Page
4.1 - Donors and Number of the Offers Made 9
5.1 - Top 5 Recipient Sector Ministries 12
Figures Page
3.1 - Training Offers by Duration 7
3.2 - Training Offers Classified by Channelling Procedure 8
4.1 - Top 10 Donors 11
4.2 - Top 5 Donors of the Period 1998/2001 11
5.1 - Top 5 Sector Ministries Which Received Foreign Training in 2001 13
22
Chapter 1
Introduction
Training is a vital aspect of human resources development and it can be done either locally or overseas. This report deals with overseas training offered to the Government of Sri Lanka by the bilateral and multilateral donors under development cooperation/assistance programmes. The term 'overseas training' covers all types of short-term and long-term training conducted outside Sri Lanka. They take the forms of workshops, seminars, diplomas, certificate courses, exposure tours, attachments, post-graduate courses etc. These training programmes are usually offered to public sector institutions, although since recent times, the private sector too has benefited to a limited extent.
Foreign training opportunities to the private sector are offered through a government agency or Trade and Industry Chambers, while training opportunities to the public sector are always channelled through a Ministry.
The purpose of this report is to review foreign training opportunities received and utilized by the Government of Sri Lanka in 2001. The report analyses the training opportunities offered to large number of recipients in different sectors through diverse funding sources. It also aims to provide information on the types of foreign training offered to Sri Lanka, their distribution and the procedure adopted in channelling these offers. Some of the issues related to processing of foreign training opportunities are also briefly discussed in the document.
While the number of the line ministries and the agencies which come under the purview of them underwent changes during the year, the information on the participants trained abroad remained unchanged. In view of these changes, the title of the line ministry, which functioned more than 6 months of the year, was taken for the purpose of identification of line ministries.
1.1 Role of the External Resources Department (ERD)
The ERD is the mandated agency of the Government of Sri Lanka for coordination, negotiation and mobilization of external resources for development financing. ERD is also responsible for the handling of technical assistance provided by the donors under their bilateral technical cooperation/assistance programmes under which foreign training opportunities are provided.
These activities are carried out by the following eight Divisions of ERD;
1. Asian Development Bank Division
2. World Bank Division
3. Japan Division
4. Bilateral – West Division
5. Bilateral – East Division
6. Technical Assistance Division
7. Information Systems & Debt Management Division
8. Policy Division
Donor Divisions are responsible for the management of official development assistance extended by the respective donor or group of donors. The Policy Division is responsible for policy matters related to mobilization and management of the aid programmes, while Information Systems and Debt Management Division is entrusted with the functions of maintaining management information system of ERD as well as compiling, validating and forecasting foreign debt.
Foreign training is handled by the Technical Assistance (TA) Division. The Project Related Training offers referred to at Chapter 2.2 (b) are, however, handled by the respective Donor Divisions under which the projects are administered.
1.2 Data Collection for the ERD Training Review
Data used in the Training Review were collected from three sources. They are:
1. The ERD database;
2. Donors; and,
3. Ministries.
1.3 ERD Database on Foreign Training
The ERD developed a Database on Foreign Training (FT) in 1999, with the intention of improving the accuracy of the data related to foreign training and thereby facilitating the decision-making process. The Database is compiled with the information submitted to the ERD by the trainees when they apply for leave abroad before proceeding for foreign training.
Chapter 2
Classification of Foreign Training
Foreign training offers can be classified using the following two criteria.
· Duration of the training
· Channelling procedure of the training
2.1 Duration of Foreign Training
Based on the duration, the foreign training offers can be grouped into three categories.
(a) Short term training - less than 2 weeks duration
This category of training provides opportunities mainly to middle and senior level public servants to attend seminars, conferences, workshops and other special programmes. Most of these programmes are aimed at providing exposure to current development, technical and managerial issues.
(b) Medium term training - between 2 to 32 weeks duration
Medium term training is offered to employees of the public and the private sector institutions to follow training courses at foreign universities, technical institutions or other similar institutions to upgrade their technical and management skills.
(c) Long term training - more than 32 weeks
Under this category, training opportunities are provided to follow programmes leading to certificate, diploma or post graduate degrees. A few such opportunities are also available to the staff of academic institutions or public sector organizations to acquire academic qualifications leading to Master's or PhDs. in foreign universities.
2.2 Channelling Procedures for Foreign Training
Foreign training offers can also be grouped in accordance with the procedure adopted in channelling of them to the prospective candidates.
(a) ERD -coordinated foreign training
Foreign training offers channelled through ERD come under this category. These offers are provided mainly by bilateral and multilateral donors under their technical cooperation programmes. ERD holds two main responsibilities in handling foreign training opportunities which come under this category. Firstly, to refer information on training offers received from donors to relevant ministries to identify candidates and secondly, to submit their nominations to the donor agencies. In most cases respective donors will make the final selection of candidates.
(b) Project-related foreign training
Some of the foreign aid funded projects contain a foreign training component which provides funding for such training placements.
These training facilities are provided to improve managerial and technical skills of the officers who are directly involved with the implementation of the project. Such training offers are also made available to the direct beneficiaries of the project to a limited extent. Selection of candidates for these training offers is the responsibility of the line ministry/implementing agency and the donor and should be done in accordance with the training requirements identified in project the documents, the agreed selection criteria and subject to government regulations on foreign funding.
The project-related training offers are mostly made available by multilateral organizations such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The bilateral donors which provide project-related training offers are; the Government of Japan, Norway, Sweden, Australia, and the Federal Republic of Germany.
Although the selection of candidates for these training opportunities is the responsibility of the line ministry/implementing agency and the donor, government approval should be obtained for the leave aborad of the officers nominated.
(c) Direct foreign training
The training offers which are not channelled through ERD are grouped under this category. These training courses originate from two sources. Some offers result from long standing commitments of international agencies which provide professional, academic and technical training in their respective specialised fields to public sector institutions. Such international agencies maintain links with the public sector institutions which provide the services in the same field. The World Health Organization (WHO), for example, is one such international agency which offers its professional services through training programs to the institutions involved in the provision of health services in the country.
The other direct offers originate as a result of long-standing linkages established between international academic institutions and the universities in Sri Lanka. They deal directly with the universities in Sri Lanka in providing training opportunities to the academic staff.
The main international agencies which provide direct foreign training include WHO, Asian Productivity Organization (APO), Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and other specialized United Nations Agencies. Among the bilateral donors, India takes the lead followed by the United Kingdom in providing direct offers. There are also a number of other bilateral donors which offer a few direct foreign training opportunities.
Since, a large number of direct offers are on specialized training, they are directed to a selected number of ministries and agencies which engaged in such specialized activities.
Chapter 3
Summary of Training Offers
As described in the previous Chapter, part of the training opportunities received by Sri Lanka are channeled through the ERD and the balance directly to the beneficiary agencies. However, the information on all the training opportunities is collected by ERD through the Form submitted by the candidates for leave abroad before they proceed for training. The information presented in this Chapter is based on such data processed by ERD during the past few years.
3.1 Training Offers by Duration
Sri Lanka has received 3,075 training offers in 2001, indicating a decrease in 3.2% compared to 3,173 in 2000. Over the last four years, the highest number of training offers which is 3,173 was recorded in year 2000. This is an increase of 20% from 1999. Long-term training offers constitute 10% of all foreign training received in 2001. The main long-term training providers are Australia, the Netherlands and Japan.
The figure 3.1 illustrates the distribution of long term and short term training for the last 4 years.
Figure 3.1 - Training Offers by Duration 1998 to 2001
3.2 Training Offers Classified by Channelling Procedure
Figure 3.2 illustrates the classification of training offers by different Channelling procedures. The highest number of training opportunities in 2001 amounting to 1,751 or 57% of the total were recorded under direct offers. This is an increase of 3 per cent from 2000.
Figure 3.2 – Training offers classified by channelling procedure
ERD handled 23% or 718 of the total training offers received in 2001 indicating an increase of 5 per cent compared to 2000.
The Project related training offers are in a decreasing trend since 1999. In 1999, project-related training were comprised of 60% of the total training offers, however this has decreased to 20% in 2001. This is a result of the termination of development projects funded by multilateral agencies which had substantial allocations of funds for foreign training under human resources development components.
Chapter 4
Training Offers Classified by Donors
This Chapter provides information on donors which provided training opportunities to Sri Lanka in 2001.
4.1 Donor Classification
A total of 40 donors including bilateral countries and multilateral agencies have provided foreign training opportunities to Sri Lanka in 2001. The Table 4.1 illustrates the donors which provided training opportunities in 2001 and the number of opportunities provided by them.
Table 4.1 - Donors and number of offers made.
Number of Offers / Donors / Number of donorsLess than 10 / Government of Pakistan, Government of Italy, Government of New Zealand, TCDC/Thailand, TCDC/Singapore, Government of France, Government of Switzerland and Asia - Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development. / 8
10 to 19 / SAARC, Government of China, WIPO, United Kingdom, Government of Norway, United Nations Environment Program, IAEA and UNFPA. / 8
20 to 49 / UNESCO, Government of Singapore, Colombo Plan, TCDC/China, Government of Thailand, Government of Federal Republic of Germany, Government of Canada, Government of Malaysia, ESCAP, FAO and Government of Australia / 11
50 to 99 / Commonwealth Fund for Technical Corporation, Asian Productivity Organization, UNDP, Government of the Republic Korea, Government of the Netherlands and Government of Israel. / 6
100 to 149 / Government of India (including ITEC & CP), United States of America1 and Government of Sweden. / 3
More than 150 / World Bank2, Government of Japan (including Japan International Cooperation Agency), Asian Development Bank2, and World Health Organization. / 4
1 Majority are privately arranged post graduate training programmes
2 Majority are project related training
As shown in table 4.1, four donors, the World Bank, Government of Japan, ADB and WHO provided more than 150 training opportunities in 2001. The major portion of the training opportunities recorded under ADB and World Bank were provided under development projects funded by them. The majority of the training opportunities provided by the Government of Japan are administered by JICA. In this category, the highest number of short-term training opportunities have been provided by the WHO. This amounts to 10% of the total training offers.
The second group falls in the range between 100 and 149 offers in 2001. The Government of India, Sweden and the United States of America which come under this category provided 7.5% of the total training opportunities. The majority of the opportunities recorded under USA are privately arranged training placements for post graduate training.