Rajarata University Sri Lanka

Strategy for Non-academic Staff Learning and Development Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Background

On-academic staff within Sri Lankan universities play a major role in improving quality and efficiency within the university system. Enhancing the skills, capacity, and competencies of these categories of staff has been a focus at the national level through the University Grant Commission and through individual universities. The Rajarata University of Sri Lanka has long been considering the capacity building of non-academic staff as a priority. Goal four of the corporate plan of the university has a special focus on improving staff competencies through training and developmental activities. To align with this goal, the Staff Development Center (SDC) of the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka has long been fulfilling the training needs of academic and non-academic staff categories. Training needs of the non-academic staff involved in financial and administrative functions has been a major focus of the university.

Selecting the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka as one of the partner universities for the Erasmus+ funded project aiming the Enhancing Governance, Management, and Reform in Sri
Lankan Universities through Non-Academic Staff Training (ENACT) create opportunities to improve non-academic staff capacity and competencies by working with other partner
universities. The objectives of the ENACT project were to to enhance the governance, management, and operations of Universities in Sri Lanka by building the knowledge and skills of non-academic staff, in view of enhancing organizational performance and supporting current and future modernization efforts and reforms in higher education. This objective aligns with the university’s goal of developing staff capacity and competencies.

ENACT project has adopted a training of the trainer method to improve staff capacity in all partner universities in Sri Lanka. This was planned to be achieved through three main training
programs in partner universities in Europe and then through subsequent multiplication training within the university. The Rajarata University of Sri Lanka adopted this method as one of the strategies at the policy level to improve non-academic staff capacity.

Establishment of the Non-academic Training Cell

A dedicated facility to train non-academic staff was established under the Staff Development Center of the University. The establishment of this Non-academic Training Cell is approved by the governing body of the university and supported by ENACT project funding with the necessary equipment. This cell is dedicated to identifying the training needs of non-academic staff through regular communication with key stakeholders, to plan training activities, conduct training, and evaluate the effectiveness of those training programs with key stakeholders. The Non-academic Training Cell is managed by the SDC through the Director of the SDC and then will report to the management committee of the SDC and to the Vice Chancellors advisory committee. There is a separate program committee for the cell to plan and execute training programs. This committee consists of non-academic staff members as representatives.

Hierarchical Position of the Non-academic Training Cell in the University

Training programs of the non-academic Training Cell are currently arranged to cover the following subject areas.

Trends and opportunities in Internationalization for higher education institutes in the world and in Sri Lanka- Strategy and Action
Project Management skills- Project proposal development, costing & budgeting, implementation and monitoring & evaluation
University administration and financial management procedures
Accounting and Auditing in higher education
Procurement procedures
Good governance and effective financing
Modern Human Resource management practices
Office management procedures
Change management skills
Networking for learning and transfer of good practices of university administration
Leadership skills
Productivity and time management
Work life balance
Diversity and maintaining equality

Mechanism to Develop Training Programs

Training programs will be designed by the program committee of the Non-academic Training Cell under the supervision of the Director/SDC. This committee will seek input from
external and internal experts, and from ENACT trainers who trained in partner universities in Europe.
Training programs will be delivered in physical lectures at the SDC and different delivering methods such as lectures, group discussions, practical activities, and Q&A sessions will be
adopted. Resource persons will be selected from the ENACT trainers and other resource persons from the university. In addition to that, the SDC and the Cell maintain databases of internal resource persons from different expertise. The current list consists of both academic and executive staff members. Director/ SDC, program committee of the Cell, and ENACT management team members will be responsible for the administration of training programs.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The non-academic Training Cell will submit a monthly progress report to the Vice Chancellors advisory committee through the Director of SDC. The suggestions and recommendations from the advisory committee will be incorporated into the activities by the SDC director.
Following each training program, a post-training evaluation questionnaire will be distributed to the participants. The collected feedback will be analyzed and formulated as a brief report.
Feedback from participants will be used by the program committee to improve the quality of the training activities.

Sustainability:

The financial sustainability of the Non-academic Training Cell will be ensured by utilizing the service of already trained ENACT trainers and internal staff members as resource persons (from the SDC resource pool). In addition to that training programs of the Cell will be included in the annual action plan of the SDC.