Why competencies are at the heart of state functioning

Have you ever wondered what happens when an individual joins a new ministry or department in the government? What skills do they bring? How do they go about figuring out their new scope of work? Here’s what happened with Vinodini. 

Vinodini has just joined as the new Under Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB). Having moved from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, which is an entirely different department she’ll have to spend some time understanding what her new position entails. As the Under Secretary, Vinodini has many new roles to perform. Each of these roles involves many activities which, in turn, would  require a whole range of competencies. 

The challenge for her will now be to identify the various roles, activities, competencies, and resources required for this position. This would also entail identifying the gaps in her competence, because only after addressing these gaps will she be able to  perform her role effectively. 

A key component of Mission Karmayogi is the shift from a rule- to role-based functioning of the state – and at the very core of this functioning lie competencies. Competencies are a combination of attitude, skills, and knowledge, and play a central role in the execution of Mission Karmayogi. 

The assessment and building of competencies equips government officials to serve citizens in the most effective way possible – this in turn leads to addressing the many gaps in overall state capacity. Breaking down each position into its corresponding roles, activities and competencies is therefore critical to the success of the mission. The competency-driven engagement or C-DE process is at the centre of this process. 

The C-DE process is the mapping of roles, activities, knowledge resources, and competencies for each individual position on the iGOT Karmayogi platform. The process provides an opportunity for enthusiastic officials like Vinodini, and/or the ministries, departments and organisations (MDOs) they represent, to begin engaging with the iGOT Karmayogi platform whilst developing a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities. 

Once Vinodini is able to map and tag the roles, activities, competencies, and knowledge resources to her position by going through the C-DE process, she will acquire a “competency score” and know what her gaps are in her new position. This will equip her to effectively address these gaps using the iGOT platform’s learning hub where she can access a variety of assessed courses, training programs, services, and products – i.e. competency building products (CBPs) – delivered digitally, face-to-face, or in a blended format.

Other than government officials and MDOs, CBP providers can also  go through the C-DE process to identify and, subsequently, develop the competencies their course addresses. This is an imperative step for providers as, without tagging their courses to competencies, it may be difficult for officials like Vinodini to deduce what courses will help them address their competency gaps.

The competency-driven engagement process puts the ability and responsibility of building competencies into the hands of those who need it the most, elevating the quality of decisions taken at every level in the government, and eventually, enhancing public service delivery. If ministries and officials do a concerted focus on both developing new as well as refining existing competencies, it will help in bringing about overall institutional reform.