Semiha Borovac, Public Administration Reform Coordinator in BiH, Amir Mulalić, representative of the consortium of companies the Centre for Computer Education Sarajevo, Net Pro Brčko, BHM Zenica and ETC-ECDL Banja Luka and Saša Palinić, representative of the consortium of companies KING ICT Sarajevo and KING ICT Zagreb signed today in Sarajevo the contract on implementation of the project “Training of Civil Servants for Application of Information Technologies and Work on Computers.”

“Implementation of the project directly fulfils one of the measures from the Action Plan 1 of the Public Administration Reform Strategy in the area of Human Resources Management, related to increase in computer literacy of civil servants”, stressed Ms. Borovac and added that the civil servants who attend this training would receive the ECDL certificates.

Objective of the project is development of efficient and modern civil service of BiH, which will be harmonised with the EU standards and which will be able to answer to integration requirements of the EU.

“In the long run, such administration will be able to provide quality service to its citizens, clients from the economy sector as well as other users of administration services. The project will contribute to more quality training of civil servants in the civil service bodies at all four administrative levels for practical application of knowledge in the field of information technology in daily work and to increase in general level of computer literacy in the civil service”, said Ms. Borovac.

The project stipulates training for 1,600 civil servants from the level of institutions of BiH, the Federation of BiH (including employees of the cantonal bodies of civil service), the Republic of Srpska and the Brčko District of BiH.

“The ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence), through these programs, is being promoted in BiH as well as the standard for proving computer skills. The ECDL standard is recognized and accepted in 148 countries of the world, testing is performed in over 40 languages and over 10 million users have this certificate”, said Mr. Mulalić. He stressed that the ECDL standard is embedded in the EU strategic plan to increase digital literacy – Digital Agenda for Europe, and that 52 directors of the EUPAN network (European Public Administration Network) decided to use the ECDL certification as an objective criterion for ICT competence of employees in modern public administration

Saša Palinić, representative of the consortium King ICT Sarajevo and King ICT Zagreb expressed his satisfaction with the fact that these firms are a part of the biggest project of education by the ECDL programme in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“We think that our experience, with over 20,000 ECDL attendees who went through our training and exam centres, will be useful for development of computer skills of civil servants”, said Mr. Palinić.

The Project worth BAM 891,737.50 will be financed from the Public Administration Reform Fund. Implementation of the project will last for 14 months.