Public Administration Tutor...A Challenge

Public Administration eLearning Community: The Challenge (eLDI 2005)

The offer was very challenging. Not only because I will be tutoring for the eLDI 2005 batch but I was tasked to be the Public Administration Tutor for a group of 11 participants who are all working in the public sector. There were about 20 participants from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The public administration participants came from Sri Lanka, Namibia, Mongolia, Vietnam and Cambodia. Surprisingly, Byambayar (Mongolia) and Sekano (Cambodia) also graduated from the University of Potsdam.

The first face- to- face workshop was in Mannheim, Germany. Maggy and I were both excited to see each other again, at the same time, we were there to facilitate the workshop and also serve as online tutors. The workshop as very tiring (for me, at least!) I think I didn't even have to time to get around Mannheim. In the presentation of projects, the public admin group selected their own topics to develop. Some opted to make their own projects while the three Vietnamese decided to work on just one project.

The Online Phase: A Test for Public Servants

The set up of the tutoring was like this: There was one umbrella tutor (Julia) and a Public Admin tutor (me) to monitor the assignments of the group. For every module, was a separate chat for the public admin group, and a separate forum for all public admin concerns. During the first module, everything was doing fine. I have invited Dr. Thomas Gebhardt of the MPM Program of the University of Potsdam to join the chat.

Then some participants got busy. We tried to follow-up on participants who have not showed up in the chats and submitted their checklists. In the end, we were informed that two participants were just to busy (they were occupying key positions in govt) in order to cope with the course. One participant was dropped because of the non-attendance in any of the activities. One realization: its really hard to involve high level ranking officials in the eLDI course!

The second face-to-face workshop in Cairo was very challenging. We had a one by one consultation with the participants. It was interesting to find the courses in Vietnamese and Mongolian.

A report was eventually submitted to InWent. I have mentioned the challenges and I guess for now, the PA elearning center is not feasible.