Training Programmes
Need For Improvement

By Khilendra Basnyat

TODAY, many people have realised that development cannot gain momentum without imparting appropriate training to those involved in development activities. The reason is that training helps administration for better productivity, organisational stability, motivation and prevention of accident and damages. In addition, it develops interest, responsiveness, cooperation and other qualities to be inherent among employees engaged in various development programmes.

Need

No training programme can be run in vacuum. A training programme is generally conducted to fulfil what is lacking and to improve the existing situation. However, before launching any training programme, training need assessment is of paramount importance because it identifies a gap between knowledge, skills and attitudes of participants.

Many make mistakes while conducting training programmes. Some organise training programmes without assessing the training needs and others conduct such programmes without proper need assessment. Actually, a proper need identification process of training is the one, which runs in the sequential and logical basis.

Since training programmes are of various types, their methodologies vary accordingly. However it should be noted that there is no single best methodology of training. The appropriate methodology depends on the type of training, its size, scope and content. However, a training programme may include more than one methodology.

The impact of training does not depend on the number of methods used but on their appropriateness. Therefore, the selection of an appropriate methodology is of immense importance of making any training effective.

Although there are several methods of training, lecture method has been still in vogue in many countries. However, one of the most effective methods of imparting training to low level trainees is an audio-visual aid method because in this method a trainer can communicate the relevant message by means of films, television, audiocassettes and pictures. One of the advantages of this method is that audio-visuals can be re-shown and the important points can be re-emphasised as and when dictated by necessity.

It is not possible to get intended results from training if the participants are not rightly chosen. The problem of nominating right persons to the right training can be solved if the pre-training exercises are properly carried out by the concerned training centre. In this respect, the concerned training centres should publish training, schedule a few months before a training programme is conducted.
Today, imparting training has been in vogue in our country too. Both governmental and non-governmental agencies have earmarked some budget for it. However, it has been futule to spend on training because it has not yielded attitudinal change.

The history of the public sector training in Nepal is not old. The realising for modernisation and capability building in the public administrative system was sought only after the political change of 1951.

There are many training centre now which conduct a variety of training programmes. These programmes hold significance only when they help speed up the pace of development.

If the training programmes are not in conformity with the need of the country, it is futile to conduct such programmes. In order to find out whether or not the training programmes have met the needs of the country, it is essential to carry out an assessment of efficiency and effectiveness of these programmes. Thereafter improvements should be made according to necessity.

A training programme cannot be as effective as expected if it is conducted in isolation. In fact, the quality of training can be enhanced if there is an exchange of ideas among the concerned authorities of training centres.

Many ex-trainees argue that after receiving training, they have no chance to work in the same job in the same place for considerable time. Consequently, knowledge and skills gained by them have not been properly utilised to bring about improvement in the working situation. The concerned authorities should pay heed to these facts. Otherwise the very purpose of giving and receiving training will be futile.

Importance

Training is neither a panacea for all ills nor a waste of time. The importance of a training should not be examined only from the perspective of direct and immediate returns because training is a slow and continuous process, and the emerging development challenges call for more meaningful and quantitative training. However, before training begins to make meaningful contribution to the development process, timely improvements are necessary.

Let Sick Industries Die !

By Deepak Adhikari

THE product life cycle theory stipulates that a product has a life, beginning with activities related to the birth to its final expiry. When the product continues to serve the users or consumers on a useful basis in competitive terms, the product would remain in high demand. The product fulfils needs or wants of the purchasers through which a value is created by the product to the purchaser.

Risk

When the product becomes out of fashion, fails to serve the tastes of the purchasers, and competing products arise in the markets, the prevailing product would lose its value or usefulness or the market. This, in other words, is what is called the market risk. Without risk, there will be neither value nor market. For example, natural air has no risk of availability or scarcity. As a result, this has no economic value. To command value, the product needs to be scarce in terms of place, time and form. If the product loses value, further investments and innovations are required so that the product finds the market.

The taste, designs and other features of the product should be adapted to the market needs in order to continue to be competitive and improve the share of the market. Unless adaptations are made and product is restructured or redesigned, the product further loses its value and is destined to be out of the marketplace over time. If the entrepreneurs or investors or even the financers or regulators do not realise the importance of the product life cycle, no amount of hue or cry or even pumping in with additional resources will improve the situation. However, people in business in Nepal seem to have forgotten this important concept. They think that product once born should always remain living despite its lack of usefulness to the society.

As the living person and his/her relatives scarcely imagine that a person will actually die and buried so do the owners of the industry that produces or markets a dying product. Products and natural living beings, however, have one basic difference: living beings die a natural death whereas products are debarred from dying a natural death because they are artificial beings created by the human beings. This basic difference has important implications. The people that own and market the product apply the lobbying influence and other vested interests to make the product alive though the product has ceased its usefulness. These groups have a lot of clout and influence, which drives them not to let the dying product die. They want to make the product living forever though there are left no takers or demanders of the product. The jargon of sick industry is such a case.

When the industry is sick and cannot be revived, what would be the use of putting on a lot of resources to keep the dying industry alive? Investing heavily scarce national resources in a dying industry with the fond hope of reviving it will only end in further loss to the society. The efforts put up for such a process would not become worthwhile and paid off. Only thing that is certain to happen is the increased wastage of resources through the dying product. Therefore, however, painful and unbelievable the death would taste, it would be a wise action if the reality is faced sprightly. Growth and decline are rampant everywhere. Even if we look at the structure of GDP in Nepal, we find that certain economic sectors have expanded while the others have shrunk. For example, the share of agriculture in GDP in 1980s was around two-thirds, which witnessed a continuous decline, with the share now falling below 40 per cent.

The non-agricultural sectors like trade and hotel, construction, community services, power, and transport and communications have substantially increased. This shows that the dynamic sectors would attract more resources while the non-dynamic sectors would see investments in them falling. This is because of the high demands of the products delivered by the dynamic sectors. Thus, the structural changes in the GDP composition reflect the changing tastes, preferences and wants of the people. In a situation where producers and consumers are free to decide about the type of products to be produced or consumed/used, some industries/activities are bound to suffer while the others would expand. This process is a natural phenomenon, which the losers should also understand. So, if resources (public or private) are diverted to the unviable economic units, this would not improve the economic situation of the country and the people as such decisions would result in a mere wastage of the resources only. Therefore, the losers of the dynamic economic process should not attempt to destroy the whole process of economic freedom by sticking too much on their demands for obtaining scarce economic resources of the society to be used in the dying sectors of the economy. They should also not pressurise the government, through the means of their lobbying powers, to allocate to them the public resources. If the economy weakens because of defective resource allocation process, no one will be the winner as all will be the losers.

However, it is natural for people in Nepal who follow Hinduism to be scared by the probable death of their industries or activities or products because the supreme god of Hinduism, Lord Shiva, had also become mad when his spouse, Shatidevi, died. Shiva had lifted her on his shoulders and gone on roaming around places in South Asia for quite a number of years when, finally, the assembly of other gods decided to create insects and germs so as to destroy the dead body of Shatidevi. The one hundred eight religious landmarks built over many places in the region are the places where various parts of the rotten body of Shatidevi fell from the shoulders of Lord Shiva. Realising the inevitable truth of the decay and death, Lord Shiva finally transformed himself into the destroyer of the living beings. Lord Shiva is thus one of the trinity Gods, the other two being Brahma, the God of creation, and Vishnu, the God of living.

Viable Path

Realising the moral of this event, the owners of the sick industries should cease to practise that there is only one God of living, i.e. Vishnu, ignoring that there is equally powerful God, Shiva, who destroys sick, old and similar weak entities for keeping the society and civilisation healthy, vibrant and sustainable. Therefore, to save the economy itself from crumbling due to the sickness arising from the sick industries, the most viable and authentic path would be to let the dying products experience natural death because the only other bitterest truth after birth is death, which should be sprightly accepted, whether by the product or the person.

Effect Of Words

By Suraj Panthi

DALEY, the mayor of Chicago, USA in 1977 had to face a lot of public criticism when he absent-mindedly spoke before them, "The policeman is not there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder."

Mere misuse of a word like "disorder" in lieu of "order" could have devastating effect on the part of the speakers. The public figures will suffer the most if they have the problem of tongue slip or bloopers. Words have life.

But we are all very much prone to making mistakes. It is thus said, 'to err is human …'. However, it is always wise to think twice before verbalising a word.

But at times great cares also do not work. One says a word or a sentence with good intention but gap of information may lead to a confusion on the part of the audience leaving enough rooms for the speakers to repent.

It so happened with this pen pusher one fine late morning while returning from the college that he saw a beautiful but poor rag-picking girl sitting on the street, facing the road at Bagbazar. Her innocent-looking face showed she was not more than 10 years. As I was watchful to her thinking about her whereabouts, things developed so fast that a well dressed and smart looking boy of almost her age came near her. Seeing him come her face flashed like that of a camera. The boy had brought with him a small packet full of food for her. The little girl took the thing on her hand and gave a good kiss on his gill. The boy replied her back a bunch of kisses and they kept on smiling.

The very scene reminded me of great poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota's lyrical version from Muna Madan and the love story of Romeo and Juliet. I was dumbfounded and was lost looking at them. Without acknowledging of what I was doing, I just approached them and said "Hi".

And lo! the boy stood and hurried for home. The girl looked sorry and I felt guilty. That very day was the longest remorseful day of my life. That was the day when I fully understood what Roser Bosenblatt meant from his essay "Oops! How's That Again!" which had appeared in Time Magazine in 1981 (the very essay is included in The Magic of Words, one of the textbooks for the plus two and Intermediate students). It was not at all with bad intentions or to disturb that I had pronounced the word. But the impact of it was such that they thought I was going to embarrass them.

It is words because of which actions and consequences remain in a pair. It is words that give life or death to happiness. It is again words that build up our personality. As a word has such a great work to do, I wonder if each of us can test whether it makes difference by being careful while using it. If one is doubtful about pronuncing a word keeping in mind its effect, isn't it always better to listen and be silent as they are made up of the same alphabets?