Minister of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development, Senator Dr. Esther Byer-Suckoo.
TOP PRIORITY
Tue, 07/05/2016 - 12:00am
Cabinet approval being sought for national knowledge management system
The Cabinet of Barbados will soon be asked to approve the approach that has been recommended to implement the national knowledge management system.
So says Minister of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development, Senator Dr. Esther Byer-Suckoo. She told deputy permanent secretaries and heads of departments attending the opening ceremony yesterday morning of the Certified Knowledge Manager Training Workshop, being conducted by the US-based Knowledge Management (KM) Institute, which was held in the Warrens Suite of Baobab Towers, that the top priority would be the creation of an appropriate strategic and high level policy framework.
“The Ministry of the Civil Service has led this charge through several related E-Government initiatives. These include the Government Wide Area Network which rationalises telephony, Internet and other ICT services; an E-Government Interoperability Framework, that would permit the seamless exchange of information throughout Government; the National Records Management Standard to provide guidance on the creation and management of information and records; an Electronic Document & Records Management System that would utilise digital technology to restructure and reduce paper driven work processes and; the E-Government Master Plan now rebranded as the Government Digital Strategy 2015-2019,” she said.
Byer-Suckoo told the workshop participants that for the knowledge management system to come to fruition, sensitisation and training must be the order of the day, as she noted that there are many persons in both the public and private sector are not aware of knowledge management. To that end, she said her ministry has already sensitised over 100 persons from the private and public sector in knowledge management and an additional 25 persons from the public and private sector received training as Certified Knowledge Managers last year from the KM Institute. She explained that their training was a first step in building performance capacity for the implementation of the knowledge management system.
Key in the creation, and especially the implementation, of this knowledge management system, will be the readiness of our people and organisations to fully embrace the knowledge management strategies. As the leaders within your organisations, you have to become our knowledge management champions,” she told them.
The Minister went on to explain, however, that even after the knowledge management system is implemented, all the relevant policies are finalised, and the ICT platform is launched and available for their use, it will be the organisational transformation within the respective Ministries that will ensure that the preferred outcomes in fact become a reality.
“We need you all to advocate and support a culture of openness, sharing and collaboration. It is you who will assess the knowledge assets you have within your Ministries, and identify the stakeholders who would be involved in improving organisational performance and productivity. It is you who will have to develop the strategies to use knowledge management to achieve the vision and mission of your agencies,” she said.