Assessing Civil Servants Training Needs: the Case of Kazakhstan

Abstract

Under the current conditions in forming the corps of civil servants, the professionalism and competence of civil servants comes to be of paramount importance. The pace of deterioration in the growth of knowledge has lead to objectively emerging contradictions between civil servants’ competency and continuously emerging new technologies. Therefore, continuous training is the basis for the constant improvement of knowledge and acquiring new socially important skills for civil servants in Kazakhstan. However, it oft en happens that in practice the planning of an educational process is carried out without a preliminary assessment of training needs, which leads to inefficiency in the whole learning process. The purpose of this article is to identify the main areas needed for the training of civil servants in Kazakhstan. This article is a report on a conducted study which focuses on the following research questions: (1) What are the common problems regarding knowledge and skills among civil servants? (2) What training content is currently required for civil servants? Research methods include online questionnaires and focus groups with civil servants, as well as interviews with international experts. Key areas of professional development in the civil service have been identifi ed based on the respondents' answers. The results confirm that civil servants universally recognize that certainly there are some gaps between what is required to perform their work completely and what they actually know. The focus and methodology of the training also requires critical attention.