EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN KYRGYZSTAN:

LENINSKOYE VILLAGE GOVERNMENT

Bolotbek Orokov,

Academy of Management, Kyrgyzstan

Dan Durning,

The University of Georgia, USA

Sergei Pushkarev,

Ural State University, Russia

Brief Description of the Project

The main goal of this project was to improve the performance of the village government

through the effective implementation of sound training policies and programs. The main

activities included identifying problems in employee training and development that stop the

village government from offering employee training, develop policy recommendations to

overcome the problems that have been identified, and helping the village government to consider

and implement a training policy.

To carry out the project, the project team:

1. Conducted a survey of village government employees on their past training

opportunities and their desire for additional training.

2. Carried out a two-day training program that aimed at teaching basic policy analysis

while assisting village government employees to address the question of their training needs and

desires.

3. Drafted a village policy on training for consideration by village leaders.

4. Consulted with village leaders to assist them to adapt a policy that reflects village

needs and constraints.

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5. Identified the types of training now available to village governments in which village

employees might participate.

6. Conducted a survey of village government employees on their assessment of a draft

training policy document.

7. Conducted a survey of village government employees on their assessment of the basic

policy analysis training.

The Context of Village Training

This project addresses an important issue in Kyrgyzstan: most of the employees of

Kyrgyzstan’s local self-governments on the village level have received no training on how to

carry out their jobs. Villages, governed by elected bodies, operate with limited funding. As

elsewhere in the world, they employ front-line workers who provide the most basic services to

local residents. In most ways they are the face of government seen most often by citizens: they

manage water systems, pick up garbage, collect taxes, assist in emergencies, register important

documents, and even assist in making sure that local men of military age report for service.

The Leninskoye Village Government

The Leninskoye government serves about 12,000 residents of four villages. The village

administrative office is located a twenty minute drive to the north of Bishkek. The village

government has 14 employees – the number allowed by the Government Resolution # 608 as of

September 5, 2002, for a village government of its size – to provide a wide array of services.

Like other village governments, its employees have had few opportunities to participate

in training. As employees note, the lack of opportunities for training comes because few training

courses are available to them, they have too little time to take part in training, and they lack

resources to pay for training.

Village Employee Views of Training Needs

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To begin the project, the employees of Leninskoye village government were asked to

complete a questionnaire related to past training and future training needs. A copy of the

questionnaire is attached as appendix 1. In addition to the questionnaire, ten employees gave

their views of training when participating in the training program on policy analysis.

In this section, we report the responses to key questions in the survey and during the

training program.

Problems limiting training:

Lack of working time to attend training (have heavy work loads, difficult to take time off

to attend training)

Lack of courses and trainers

Lack of training materials

Poor location (must travel to other locations for training, and inadequate public

transportation is available)

Lack of money to pay for training

Lack of incentives to attend training (no sure what they get out of it)

General versus Special Training?

Would like about 12 days a year of some type of training. They see a need for both types

of training. Because of small number of employees, they learn to do each other’s job so they can

help during absences.

General: Management, policy analysis

Specialized: Training related to specific jobs and related skills

Knowledge: Want training in new laws. They need to be informed of changes in laws

and the implications of those changes for them and the village government

Want more materials

Want access to internet

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Structure of Training

Would like one day a month of training, perhaps spread over several days (e.g. two hours,

two or three times a week).

The consequences of the lack of training are clear. Village government is carried out by

people who work hard, but do not have all of the skills and knowledge they need for best

performance. According to the assistant village manager, most people working in village

government are not prepared through education or training for their work. Employees learn

through on-the-job training, but have few opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills.

He also noted another problem caused by lack of training: employees are often

uninformed about changes in national laws that affect them or that they should implement. As a

result, it may be months before they learn about new laws important for their work.

The survey and conversations at the training sessions with the village government

employees showed a strong interest in having more opportunities for training. However, the

employees remain concerned that the costs of training and the time away from their jobs would

make such training impossible.

Training theories and approaches

As the literature suggests, the nature of the training in the public sector has changed over

the recent decades. Traditionally, training was considered to be job-focused, limited to the

technical skills and abilities needed by public employees to perform specific tasks. As such, it

was differentiated from education, which was considered to be broader in scope, more oriented

toward a range of future jobs and generally provided by institutions of higher learning.

Traditionally, individuals obtained their education first and subsequently received training in the

work environment.

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Recently, the distinction among training, education, and development has become blurred

(Van Wart, Cayer, and Cook, 1993). As public organizations find themselves needing to help

employees learn about new technologies and skills, training, in many instances, has begun to

look like what has traditionally been called education. The on-going debate in academia over the

content of the courses suggested in MPA and PhD programs is illustrative of the nature of these

discussions.

The literature suggests a number of typologies and taxonomies of training. The nature of

this article does not allow going into more details. A brief annotation of those taxonomies are in

Table 1.

Table 1. Taxonomies of training suggested in the literature.

Technical:- Procedural- Mechanical- Professional

Non-job specific:- Basic- General

Management:- Supervisory- Management- Executive

Employee enrichment

Adapted from Montgomery Van Wart, N. Joseph Cayer, and Steve Cook, Handbook of Training and Development for the Public Sector, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993, pp.21-34.

According to DeSario et. al. (1994), training “refers to learning experiences designed to

enhance the short-term and/or long-term job performance of individual employees”. In this

respect, training is viewed as part of an on-going developmental process. Training needs to be

linked with the organizational mission (Eurich, 1985; Fischer, 1989; Latham, 1988; Miller,

1989). So, when local governments plan their training activities, they need provide the link with

the organizational mission and local budget and implementation.

Some authors suggest considering training as investment decisions (Eurich, 1985), and

they should be made after careful consideration. It is usually advised that training activities

should be examined from the perspective of their ability to influence individual job performance,

rather than isolated experiences that may or may not contribute to the organization’s success.

McGehee and Thayer (1961) are usually regarded as the authors of the first textbook on

training in organizations. They suggested a three-fold approach to determine the types of training

and development experiences that should be implemented, including organizational analyses,

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task analyses, and person analyses. Accordingly, organizational analyses focus on the

organization’s ability to support training. Task analyses focus on the knowledge, skills, abilities,

and other personal characteristics required to perform the agency’s task. Person analyses focus

on the needs of the individual, identifying personal characteristics possessed by the particular

individual.

There are two basic questions must be addresses in the design of training activities. The

first is the question of how a given course should be delivered. Who should participate? Where

the course should be held? What types of learning tools should be used in the program? A second

question is the creation of a learning experience that improves the transfer of knowledge. It is not

enough for the trainees to learn; they must be able and willing to se new abilities on their job.

From the field of adult education, it is well known that adults are learning differently than

children. First of all, adults have to know why they should learn something. Thus, employees

need to see training experiences as relevant to their current work environment. Second, trainees

need to be self-directed, they should be active participants in the learning process. Third, both

trainees and trainers must recognize that adult employees have a greater volume and different

quality of experience than youth.

In the design of training and development activities, a wide variety of instructional media

is available to trainers and managers (Campbell, 1988; Goldstein, 1986; Latham, 1989). There

are different instructional techniques that can be used, including lectures, case studies,

simulations, role-play exercises, and small-group discussions. Regardless of the particular

technique, trainees should be active participants in the learning process. They should have an

opportunity to practice their knowledge and skills in a scenario that closely resembles the actual

job situation. Also, participants should receive feedback.

The Training Program on Public Policy Analysis

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The training program at Leninskoye village government was scheduled for Tuesday July

27 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Thursday, July 29, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The original

plan called for a week-long intensive training, but the employees of the local government could

not attend the training that long without shutting down essential operations.

The first day of training was attended by 10 employees of the Leninskoye Village

government and five employees of the neighboring Grozd Village government. The training was

led by Bolotbek Orokov, with participation by Sergei Pushkarev and Dan Durning.

The second day of training had to be postponed because of a Village emergency. The

night before the training program, one of the employees had without authorization and

apparently while inebriated operated a local vehicle and hit a person, killing him. The accident

was being investigated when the trainers showed up for the training program, and few employees

were available to participate. As a result, the training was postponed until 5 of August, when it

was planned to be provided by Orokov and Pushkarev. That haven’t happened either, as many

local government employees were working on the infrastructure which was damaged.

After the training, participants were asked to evaluate the training program. The

responses to the evaluation questions were as follows:

1 I evaluate the achievements of the training goals as:In general achievement of the goals were considered by the participants satisfactorily.

2 My expectations on this training course were justified.3 I will use these knowledge in my day to day work.4 Now I can say that in general I know how to analyze problems including those related to

training issues.5 From this course I like all presentations of trainers, work in small groups that gives us

chance to practice analytical tools, and presentations of members of small groups and discussions.

6 I do not like that training was conducted during a whole day. It is too difficult. That is why we offered to conduct second day of training shorter during the second half of a day.

7 I would like to have more time for each topic of the training. This will give us opportunity to learn more.

8 I would like to know more about analyzing problems, using legal aspects for consideration problems, application updated managerial tools in day to day work, general administration issues, especially applicable to local governance.

9 In future I am planning to think more how to use existing opportunities to upgrade skills and knowledge to perform better and have more benefits from it both for the organization

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and for me.10 I would like to wish more training, better performance, and changes in national legislation

for local governments in order to motivate participation in trainings.

Recommended Training Policy for Leninskoye Village

Based on the responses to the employee questionnaire on training needs and the public

policy training programs, the project staff members drafted a training policy to propose to

Leninskoye Village.

The main features of the proposed policy include:

Training goals

Policies that will assist the village to reach those goals, including

(1) Providing employees the opportunity to participate in training

(2) Making these opportunities fairly available, and

(3) When possible, helping to pay for these training programs.

Appointing a person to be “training officer” to carry out the tasks needed to identify

training opportunities and helping employees participate in them.

In formulating these draft policies, the project staff discussed many important issues:

(1) International experience in solving identical problems in the training of village

governments’ employees.

Russia: Requires local and regional governments to set a particular percentage of budget

revenues aside to pay for employees’ training. Academies of public administration have special

short term programs for public employees.

Ukraine: Requires oblast and local government employees to participate in training

programs in order to receive promotions and raises. Has a system of training programs on the

oblast level.

US-Ukraine Foundation is setting up regional training centers (four centers, plus main office in

Kiev) to provide training programs for city and oblast governments.

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(2) Non-traditional ways of organizing the employee training. The exploration of this issue

will help in finding the proper ways of organization of employee training in specific

condition such as, for example, the lack of financial resources.

Possibilities include correspondence courses completed through self-study (using published

materials or putting materials and courses on CD ROMs). Such training could be provided

cheaply and efficiently.

Focusing on providing “cluster training” – training at a central site for several village

governments

(3) Sustainable training practice. It is important that the implementation of training

programs should not be terminated after the finishing the project.

(4) What incentives can be used to make people interested in taking the training?

Law should permit small raises for successful completion of a sequence of courses that increase

employee’s job performance.

We asked the village employees to evaluate the training policy (see appendix 4), and the results

show that The Personnel Training Policy is a document that is absolutely necessary for village

government. Goals and objectives, general principles of the policy and responsibilities of

training coordinator are correctly formulated.

Training Opportunities

Efforts are being made to expand training opportunities for city and village governments.

The main efforts include:

Academy of Management: Has a grant from the Hanns Seidel Foundation, located in

Munich, Germany, is supporting the development of training courses and materials. For

example, it recently published training materials on Financial Basis of Local Self-Government,

Organizational and Legal Basis of Local Self-Government, and Economic Basis of Local Self-

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Government in the Kyrgyz Republic. However, the Rector of the Academy suggests two

problems in making these courses more widely attended:

(1) The Academy has no way to contact directly village government across the

country to invite them to training. Instead, it relies upon the Oblast governor’s office to

make the contacts with local and village governments to inform them of the available

training sessions.

(2) Village government employees lack incentives to participate in training

programs. Completing a training program has no discernible benefits for the participants

in terms of pay and promotions.

He suggests that training will become of greater interest to village governments

when new legislation is passed to provide incentives for participating in such programs.

Apparently, the national government has a new policy on local government training that

encourages training and draft legislation, if finally approved, would provide some funds and

incentives for training.

United National Development Program: has several programs that operates at village

level. One the main program is UNDP Local Self-Governance Program, which has a whole

program component on Institution and Capacity Building. The goal of the component is the

establishing the system of effective and efficient local governments promoted through

developing the capacity of local authorities. UNDP works on developing human resources in the

Government and local communities and cooperate with educational institutions in developing

strong system for training of municipal servants. Together with the Academy of Management

LSG Program works on developing Training Center for Municipal Servants, which is under the

Academy of Management. Since 1999 LSG Program has been conducting training for several

thousand people in villages every year. LSG Program conducts following courses:

organizational and legal basis of local self-governance

financial and economic basis of local self-governance

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human resources management

social mobilization issues

local development funds

grants for developing village infrastructure

and other topics that have direct relationship to local governance.

Leninskoe village government has an opportunity for cooperation with UNDP in the area

of capacity building.

Urban Institute (funded by USAID): has its main aim to create the basis for

decentralization through development of the legislation, promotion of a dialogue and cooperation

between local governments and citizens, and strengthen local governments’ capacity to deliver

services. The program covers both cities and big villages in Kyrgyzstan. The program is part of

a regional project in four Central Asian republics and largely continues activities implemented

under UI’s previous project in Kyrgyzstan in 1999-2002. The program aims at improvement of

effectiveness among local governments in cities and large villages through direct training and

technical assistance, while also providing avenues for citizens to engage in self-government,

both through their local governments and through housing associations. UI also provides

assistance to national government partners to develop legislation and decentralization policies

aimed at greater level of autonomy for local governments and housing associations that in turn

will make their activity more effective and responsible.

 One of the primary areas of activity of UI is Development of Training Capacity,

supporting the development of trainers and institutions capable of delivering training to

complement technical assistance activities and promote local governments’ effectiveness.

Training accompanies all project components. Courses participants are deputies of cities

and village councils, employees of city and village councils, partnerships of housing owners.

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Urban Institute training courses are conducted in an interactive regime and are aimed at their

participants receiving specific knowledge and obtaining practical skills within the framework of

performed by them functions. The needs in education are determined in the course of joint

activity with local governments. Training materials are drafted with regard to specific

peculiarities of each community. Urban Institute conducts the following training courses:

Communal property management basis

Budgeting strategy and citizens’ participation in this process

Condominiums (partnerships of housing owners) activity

Local government concept

Budgeting strategy

Strategies for Budget Development

Local economic development strategy

LSG & Mass Media

Congress of Local Communities and Association of Village Municipalities are two non-

profit organizations that also from time to time conduct training courses for village authorities.

These two organizations can also be useful for Leniniskoe village government in terms of

receiving new information on local governance in Kyrgyzstan. Representatives of LVG want to

have information about new laws and regulations in time. These two organizations can provide

many opportunities in these regards. They can also support LVG in terms of organization joint

training activities for villages situated in the same region and reduce the cost of the training.

Other Important Issues for Village Training

(1) The role of the Apparatus of the Minister of Local Self-Governance and Regional Affairs

(AMLSG) in providing necessary normative, financial, and any other kinds of support to

village governments in terms of employee training organization.

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According to the National Strategy of Decentralizing State Administration and

Developing Local Self-Governance in the Kyrgyz Republic approved by the Decree # 381 as of

December 17, 2002, of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, AMLSG plays one of the most

active roles in issues of municipal servants training. AMLSG together with UNDP, Urban

Institute, the Academy of Management, the Congress of Local Communities and other

international and domestic institutions took the most active part in developing national

legislation in this area. One of the most important acts is the Law on “Municipal Service in the

Kyrgyz Republic”, which considers training of employees as necessary activity for all local

authorities. Together with educational institutions, primarily the Academy of Management,

AMLSG is responsible for creation of Republican and Regional Commissions on personnel

policy and municipal service, development of the Plan of cadres preparation for local authorities,

development of national policy in personnel training, particularly the Concept on Municipal

Servants Training. That is why, the outputs of given project should be necessarily shared with

AMLSG for their consideration and following political actions, especially in terms of

distribution positive results throughout the whole country. One of the instruments of distributing

the results to and receiving feedback from interested parties is organization the seminar or round

table discussion where the project outputs can be presented. Initially according to time table, the

seminar was planned to be conducted at the end of June 2004. Taken into account that the

training for Leninskoe VG personnel was postponed to the end of July, it was impossible to

conduct one day seminar with participation of AMLSG and other interested parties in the

beginning of August because of annual leave of most AMLSG people, including first deputy

minister Mr. Fattahov who is responsible for working with the project. The seminar is postponed

to be conducted in September 2004.

(2) The role of the Academy of Management under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic

(AMP) and partner universities in providing training to village governments.

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The best description of the role of the Academy of Management in training issues is given in the

Concept on Municipal Servants Training approved by the Decree # 76 as of March 1, 2004 of the

President of the Kyrgyz Republic. According to the Concept on Municipal Servants Training, the

Academy of Management as well as other main educational institutions conducts training of

municipal servants. But its main role is that the Academy of Management serves as the

Secretariat of the Board on Education and Training of Municipal Servants of the Kyrgyz

Republic (the Board) that was created according to above said Concept and approved by the

same Decree of the Kyrgyz Republic’s President. The Board is created for formulation and

implementation of public policy in the area of local governments training. Members of the Board

are representatives of the Presidential Administration, the Apparatus of the Prime-Minister and

other Governmental institutions, and representatives of educational and civic organizations.

There are 13 members of the Board. The President-Rector of the Academy of Management is the

Executive Secretary of the Board.

Secretariat of the Board, which operates on the basis of the Academy of Management,

provides organizational and technical support to the activity of the Board and coordinates

activity of all organizations involved in the training of municipal servants. The Academy of

Management as the Secretariat of the Board, is also responsible for planning, programming,

monitoring and evaluation of national policy activities in the area of municipal training.

Within the framework of this given project the Academy of Management was

responsible primarily for providing organizational support to the implementation of the project.

Materials gathered during the project implementation will be useful in conducting training for

other local governments in the Kyrgyz Republic, and also implementing educational degree

programs for working with students. Publication of the project materials will be done before the

seminar with participation of AMLSG is conducted.

Partner educational institutions, Ural State University (Russia) and University of

Georgia (USA), were very useful in providing technical support in terms of sharing rich

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expertise in training local governments. Dr. Dan Durning and Professor Sergei Pushkarev shared

their knowledge and skills obtained from their work in Russia, Ukraine, Republic of Georgia,

China, USA and other countries. Leninskoe Village Government took part in a very useful

training course on Training Policy Analysis and obtained unusually for Kyrgyz localities reach

with international experience knowledge and skills. On the other hand, Dan Durning and Sergei

Pushkarev obtained knowledge about not only training of municipal servants in Leninskoe

village, but also local self-governance practice in Kyrgyzstan.

The Future of Training in Leninskoye Village

The Village faces many barriers to providing the training needed and wanted by city

employees. The largest barrier is finances. Simply stated, the Village government operates with

too few funds for its basic needs. It faces large demands for services – demands that far exceed

resources. In this situation, it is difficult to justify substantial expenditures on training. Thus, at

present, training is possible only when highly subsidized.

In addition to the resource problem, the Village policy is constrained by the lack of

involvement of the national government in the promotion of training in local self-governments

regardless existing activities in the process of implementation of National Strategy on

Decentralization of State Administration and Development of Local Self-Governance, the

Concept on Municipal Servants Training, the Law on Municipal Service, and others. Apparently

the existing legislation is not developed fully enough in order to eliminate these barriers. In the

next few years, they may be eliminated by adjusted legislation, and in the best scenario, national

laws will both encourage local training by providing incentives for employees to participate in

training, and they will provide some funding for it. In this situation, Leninskoye will be in a

position to implement its training policy.

Before national legislation is fully enacted, Leninskoye can encourage its employees to

attend the training that is now offered by different institutions that have received external

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funding, including government resources (last year the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic

shared about 15 million soms for training of civil servants at national and local levels), to

subsidize it. To do so, it needs an employee who will maintain contact with organization

offering training to make sure that the Village is informed about the training opportunities that

are available and to encourage trainers to offer the programs most valuable for Village

employees. It is not necessarily that Leninskoye village needs additional person in the

government. The role of training coordinator can be played by one of existing employees, for

example, the deputy head of the village government.

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