Building a contingent of commune-level cultural civil servants: Meeting quality standards, professional expertise

– The contingent of cultural and social civil servants at the commune level is the core force in advising and implementing for grassroots authorities on the contents and fields of culture and sociology. Being well aware of this, over the past time, relevant agencies and units have implemented many positive solutions to make this contingent more and more qualified in terms of quality and professional expertise.

Currently, the province has 395 commune-level cultural and social civil servants working at 200 People’s Committees of communes, wards and townships. Thus, on average, each commune, ward and township has one or two cultural and social civil servants at the commune level. The number of civil servants with a university degree or higher is 280 people, accounting for 70.9%, up 13.1% compared to 2017; the rest are intermediate and college degrees. According to the annual report of the Department of Home Affairs on performed tasks, the contingent of commune-level civil servants in general and cultural and social civil servants in particular, basically meets the quantity and gradually meets quality standards.

The cultural and social civil servants of the People’s Committee of Chi Lang ward, Lang Son city exchanged their expertise

With this result, over the past time, relevant levels and sectors have well implemented solutions from recruiting, arranging, training to fostering cultural and social civil servants. Among these solutions, attention has been paid by all levels and sectors to send civil servants to training and retraining. Specifically, every year, the People’s Committees of communes and districts review and send cultural and social civil servants to training courses who do not meet standards or propagate and encourage civil servants to self-paid courses to improve their professional qualifications (colleges, universities and post-graduate) in the form of learning by doing, distance learning. At the same time, the district-level People’s Committees cooperate with the Department of Home Affairs, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs and relevant agencies to organize training classes, courses to improve political theory, cultural management, socio-cultural professional and information technology for the contingent of civil servants at the commune level in general and cultural and social civil servants in particular. From 2017 up to now, all levels and sectors in the province have coordinated to organize for nearly 11,500 turns of commune-level officials and civil servants, including cultural and social civil servants to participate in training classes and courses.

Mr. Vi Anh Thang, Chief of Office of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that every year, based on the actual situation, the Office develops a plan to advise the Department’s leaders to deploy training courses to improve professional qualifications for cultural and social civil servants in communes, wards and townships in the fields of culture, sports, tourism and family; create conditions for them to participate in learning to improve their qualifications, skills and professionalism in order to help this contingent meet quality standards, be professional, firmly develop their capacity and effectively perform duties.

Accordingly, from 2018 up to now, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has organized 12 training courses on the movement of all people uniting to build cultural life, family culture, conventions, etc., for cultural and social civil servants at the commune level. At the same time, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism suggested that the People’s Committees of districts and the city regularly pay attention to the implementation of regimes and policies and promptly praise, encourage and reward excellent individuals and advanced examples to encourage cultural and social civil servants at the commune level to promote their capacity to boost cultural activities in localities.

Mr. Huong Ngoc Hoan, Deputy Head of Trang Dinh District Home Affairs Division said that over the past time, the contingent of cultural and social civil servants at the commune level in the district has been arranged and consolidated to ensure the quantity and meet the requirements of performing duties. Currently, the whole district has 38 cultural and social civil servants, of whom, there are 25 people with university degree or higher, accounting for 65.78%; 13 people have college or intermediate degrees, accounting for 34.2%; 100% of cultural and social civil servants meet the standards of information technology application.

For their part, each cultural and social civil servant also has a sense of self-improvement in professional qualifications, actively advises party committees and authorities at grassroots to effectively direct tasks and targets related to field of socio-culture. Ms. Dang Thu Hien, cultural and social civil servant of the People’s Committee of Chi Lang ward, Lang Son city said that thanks to her efforts in studying and improving her qualifications, currently, she and two cultural and social civil servants of the ward have university qualifications, master the knowledge and skills of socio-culture to handle tasks assigned by superiors such as the construction of cultural life, the conservation and promotion of relics, the care of children’s health and so on.

It can be said that, with the attention of the relevant agencies and units in the province to have many effective solutions the contingent of social and cultural civil servants at the commune level in the whole province basically meet the requirements, become the nucleus, the core in mobilizing and guiding the People to promote cultural and social movements and activities at the grassroots level.