National Science Centre Cops Service Excellence
Award
The NIHERST/NGC National Science Centre was in winners’
row on April 2nd 2008, copping the Best New Entrant Award for
Customer Service Excellence in the
2007 Prime Minister’s Innovating for Service Excellence Awards. This
award scheme, administered by the Ministry of Public Administration and
Information, recognizes and rewards outstanding work performed by the
various departments of the Public Service. Now in its fourth year, the
programme attracted 48 submissions from various Ministries.
The National Science Centre (NSC) submitted the “NIHERST
Community Science Week” project as an entry to the Customer Service
Excellence category of the award scheme for the September 2007 nomination
period. The Community Science Week project, first begun in 2003, is a major
outreach activity of the NSC, which takes its science popularization
programmes out to far flung communities across Trinidad and Tobago.
A unique feature of the project is the operational aspect of full community
engagement, in which the community served by the initiative also partners
with the NSC in planning and implementation of the programme. Since its
inception, the Community Science Week project has been undertaken on eight
occasions, serving a cumulative total of 30,000 citizens in La Brea, Toco,
Tobago (twice), Mayaro, Barrackpore, Point Fortin and Moruga.
At the Award Ceremony, held at Queen’s Hall in Port of Spain, Mrs. Diana
Mahabir-Wyatt, Chairperson of the Adjudication Panel delivered comments
which mentioned the Panel’s view that this year’s entries were particularly
impressive in terms of their creativity, innovativeness and demonstration of
hard work.
She noted that while the Public Service usually is on the
receiving end of much criticism, the projects submitted were clear
indicators of teams which sought to attain and maintain international
standards of performance. She bemoaned the fact that more effort is not
exercised in making the public aware of the good work being done in projects
such as the ones submitted, for indeed the wider community should also have
the opportunity to applaud these efforts. The Panel put
forward recommendations for past and future entrants to the award scheme,
calling on their attention to develop and use proper measurement systems to
assess the real benefits of the projects undertaken. Entrants were also
encouraged to join hands with the publics served in the undertaking of their
programmes, and to ensure that cost effectiveness and sustainability are
promoted as these are critical factors for improvement of service.
Minister the Hon. Kennedy Swaratsingh gave the Feature Address at the
ceremony. In his address, the Minister stated that no real innovation is
possible unless the human mind and the human resource of the Public Service
are also developed. He indicated that appropriate levels of recognition and
reward must also be put in place to acknowledge excellence such as is
accomplished by this award scheme. Stating that “the
purely regimented approach could no longer suffice”, the Minister advocated
that the workplace should be considered as a place of experimentation to
improve service delivery. He also stated that managers in particular have a
“pivotal responsibility” for engendering innovation and should be receptive
to new ideas for getting the job done and must themselves be seen as “agents
of change”. Taking home the main awards were project teams
from the Ministry of Housing (2 awards), the Ministry of Health and the
Ministry of National Security.
   
   
Passionate teamwork is an essential element of the
project, drawing on the creative,
problem-solving and pedagogical expertise of NIHERST staff members |
