Training public servants to do their jobs effectively and serve the people efficiently is critical. Law now directs that some training programmes should be compulsory to achieve this goal, writes Dino Poonsamy.
Recent amendments to the Public Administration Management Act now require that the National School of Government (NSG) design and deliver compulsory education and training across national, provincial and local government. This means public servants across the three spheres of government are now legally required to complete specific training before they are appointed and, during their employment, to continue in their roles.
This is not a technical requirement but rather one of the more consequential public sector reforms in recent years, and it is worth understanding what it means and why it matters.
The NSG falls within the portfolio of institutions reporting to the Minister for the Public Service and Administration, responsible for the education, training and development of public servants across the three spheres of government.
Why compulsory, and why now?
For three decades, training in the public service was mostly encouraged rather than required. Officials could attend courses if they chose to, if their manager approved it, or if a department prioritised it.
The outcomes were uneven: some officials took advantage of the training being offered, whilst others did not. In many instances, we could relate this lack of standardised training to audit outcomes and institutional performance but ultimately it is the citizens who receive varying degrees of service based on the skills and competence of the official serving them.
Our government tried to close this gap before. A two-day induction course became compulsory for new officials in 2008. By 2012, completing it became a requirement for confirming a new employee's job and for a pay increase. In 2020, the government directed that senior managers should complete a pre-entry qualification, known as Nyukela, before they could even be appointed. Each of these steps helped, but none of them, on its own, can permanently change the culture of the public sector. The current reforms are the latest and most far-reaching attempt to fix that.
What this means for public servants
If you work in the public sector, this is what is changing in practical terms. Certain courses, such as ethics, anti-corruption, supply chain management, and induction, are no longer optional.
There are currently 10 compulsory courses being delivered by the NSG, and Cabinet has now directed an expansion of the courses, with a further 10 to be offered. Completing them can determine whether your appointment is confirmed or whether you are eligible for a salary increase.
To be a senior manager, you face an even higher bar: you must complete a pre-entry certificate before appointment and are required to spend a minimum number of days in training every few years, for as long as you hold a senior role. This is a real shift in what a public sector career looks like.
Development is becoming built into the job itself, not something you choose to pursue in your own time if you are motivated to do so. The NSG is also linking compulsory short courses to structured learning pathways that enable public servants to progressively build their knowledge, skills and professional competence over time.
Rather than ending with a standalone certificate, learning will increasingly form part of an articulated development journey, creating clearer routes into occupational qualifications, professional learning programmes and higher qualifications.
What this means for the citizen
For members of the public, the delivery of compulsory training to public servants means that when making decisions that affect people’s lives, they should increasingly be officials who have actually been trained and tested on how to do that job properly, not simply appointed and left to learn on their own.
There is early evidence that this is working where it has been tried properly. In one municipality in Limpopo, officials who completed compulsory supply chain management training showed measurable improvements in the care with which public money was managed afterwards, with better compliance and stronger audit outcomes. That is the kind of change, multiplied across thousands of officials and hundreds of public institutions, that compulsory training is meant to produce.
The gap is still to be closed
Not everyone is covered yet. At the local government level in particular, ongoing training for municipal employees generally still depends on management approval rather than compulsory training being a standing requirement.
This matters because local government is where most citizens interact with the State most directly, and where serious governance failures have occurred. Even SALGA [South African Local Government Association] itself has argued that leadership training in local government should not be optional.
The true test of these reforms will be whether, over the next several years, the public actually experiences improved public services as a result of compulsory training.
Poonsamy is the Chief Director for Strategy and Systems at the National School of Government.
