Customs: Applying various forms of training and fostering human resources

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An assessment of capacity of civil servants of Hai Phong Customs Department Photo: Thai Binh

One of the strategic perspectives throughout the process of building, developing, reforming and modernizing the Customs sector in the past is to closely link the development of human resources with the promotion of human resources, leverage to improve the quality and efficiency of work, pay special attention to training and retraining to develop comprehensive capacity for civil servants in the industry.

The Customs sector has made great efforts and focused on the leadership, direction and implementation of synchronous solutions, in order to constantly improve the quality of training and retraining of civil servants, to meet the requirements for reform and modernization of the industry. According to the evaluation of the Department of Organization and Personnel - the General Department of Customs, the training and retraining work of the General Department of Customs has recently met the objectives and requirements of training and retraining civil servants in the Finance sector.

Training and retraining for civil servants has been a focus of leaders at all levels and units in the industry, especially the training and retraining of skills and professional expertise for civil servants in each field. This it to meet the requirements of the current tasks of the units, the requirements of the electronic clearance system of VNACSS and the requirements of reform, modernization and international integration.

In addition to taking advantage of funding from international organizations and Customs to organize professional training courses for civil servants and officials, the General Department of Customs has annually built elaborate training and retraining plans to serve as a basis for training and retraining work of units under the General Department. The training and retraining according to the standards of leadership titles and the criteria of civil servant rankings has been a focus. Most civil servants and officials, when appointed or re-appointed, meet the conditions and standards. The training of professional skills has been renovated, the program and contents of training have been updated promptly with new policies, regimes and procedures at each stage. The quality of training and retraining has been improved, meeting the requirements of the task.

On average, each year, the General Department of Customs organizes about 150 training and retraining classes and appoints about 17,000 officials and civil servants to participate in domestic training courses. Many local customs departments have actively implemented good methods to suit their units, such as the construction of civil servant testing software (Dong Nai, Hai Phong, Quang Tri); self-build documents and organize professional training for executives.

Sharing experience in training of the unit, Director of Quang Tri Customs Department Bui Thanh San said the training and retraining of Customs civil servants at the Department follows the motto of "Practice makes perfect"; taking theory combining practice; direct visits and operations through emulation models are key.

For Quang Tri Customs Department, in order to carry out the self-training and retraining of civil servants, the unit has established in-depth research teams on professional sections: Customs management supervision; Tax Administration; Post-clearance checks; anti-smuggling; handling violations, in order to advise on the compilation of systems of questions of civil servant examination, compilation of training and retraining of specialized professional skills.

The unit has built software to assess the capacity of civil servants (being one of the first three units of the Customs industry so far) through a system of exam questions, deploying applications and evaluating effectiveness from the beginning of 2017 up to now. The unit has also successfully organized three examination sessions for leaders of the Team and civil servants in the whole Department with 309 civil servants participating. The use of capacity evaluation software updates the basic knowledge for civil servants in the performance of tasks, questions and situations that are appropriate for the work at the unit.

At Da Nang Customs, in order to build a contingent of experts, there are civil servants who have enthusiasm, ethical qualities, high qualifications and professional capacity to be a core force in the study, advice and real organization. Executing duties in professional fields, the unit has always focused on improving the quality of self-training and retraining at the units.

Deputy Director of Da Nang Customs Department Nguyen Thi Thanh Van said in 2019, Da Nang Customs has built a team of experts for seven main professional fields including: Import and export taxes; Monitoring management; Risk management; Customs control; Inspection, testing; Information Technology; Post-clearance checks; of which, there are 15 specific intensive professional fields.

At the same time, for the selection, construction and development of a team of experts to be implemented in a public, transparent, objective, regulations and ensure competitiveness, fairness, focus and importance. Da Nang Customs has also issued the Regulation on building, managing and using the experts of Da Nang Customs Department as well as establishing the Expert Selection Council.

Along with a team of newly formed experts, civil servants who are currently part-time lecturers of Customs have regularly organized training courses, training and guiding professional processes for civil service staff throughout the Department. such as: Operating and using all kinds of scanners; Investigating and studying the situation, Establishing records of object investigation, Setting up documents to build secret establishments; and training on risk management skills.

In addition to improving professional knowledge to meet mission requirements, Da Nang Customs also has solutions to improve the quality and professionalism of cadres and civil servants through training and retraining of soft skills. These include organizing refresher courses: Presentation skills and effective meeting organization, office behavioral culture and work ethics, gradually create a style of working and doing administrative tasks, rational and legal duties as well as improving professionalism and bravery for each customs officer.

However, according to the customs of some provinces and cities, the program, content of training and retraining, and teaching materials are still slow to innovate, heavy in theory, and have not focused on the quality of content as well as improving teaching methods. The reason is that coordination among units is not yet strict, while policies and business processes have changed frequently. Some difficult units in the selection of civil servants and officials to go to school due to less staffing, pressure on work and periods of units organizing overlapping training courses.

Therefore, some customs units also commented, the Customs sector is promoting the implementation of examination of civil servants according to the job placement capacity framework, so the program of self-training and retraining, training in units should also be changed and should be directed and guided to implement uniformly throughout the industry; avoiding each place with a different perspective on the same issue, towards building a team of Vietnamese Customs officers that are ‘Professional - Intensive - Transparent – Efficient’.

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Along with that, it is necessary to continue to study, modify, supplement and update training and retraining materials suitable for each class, each professional field, each group of learners to enhance efficiency and practicality of each training course. Besides, there is a need to promote on-the-job training, especially being respected according to the method of predecessors, guiding the following, highly specialized people to guide and mentoring people with low specialties; with long-term civil servants accompanying new civil servants into the profession.