Hadi Khatib
Daily Star staff

Computer literacy among government employees received another boost Tuesday as the Ministry for Administrative Reform sponsored a second round of training sessions for bureaucrats.
Trainees gathered at Formatech’s computer training center at Sodeco Square for the session, the first of which began around three years ago when the company trained a number of public sector employees from the Port of Beirut, Ogero, the Litani River Authority and others over an eighteen month period.
“This is an open contract, where training is open to all government personnel and today we are starting with the Foreign Ministry,” Formatech chairman and general manager Antoine Aoun told The Daily Star.
Aoun said the current session fell under a one-year contract worth $350,000 to $400,000. Around 1,500 employees are scheduled to take about eight courses focused on computer programs such as Microsoft Windows, Word and Excel.
“We train around 2,500-3,000 people per year, mostly from banks and private companies, and the rest are individuals and government contracts,” Aoun said.
Formatech was founded in 1995 and is now licensed by Microsoft to teach, train and issue certificates for anyone from users to system engineers and administrators. The company is also an ORACLE education partner and a certified internet webmaster authorized training provider.
Fawwaz Khoury, the ministry’s training officer, said that computerization and computer education is a “continuous process” at the ministry.
“Our priority at the ministry is to supply computers to all the ministries and we began by supplying around 1,500 computers, but we are still doing that and some of the ministries like the Foreign Ministry, which is training today, are completely computerized,” Khoury said.
Khoury said Formatech was chosen based on a tender process that started last September and took three months to complete.
“This is a program funded by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and we can only pick a company based on competence using a selection process that is strictly confidential in identifying the most competitive bids,” Khoury explained.
All employees benefit from a 24-hour hotline offered by Formatech for any assistance during their training period.
The latest effort comes as part of a series of initiatives by the ministry to improve public sector performance and efficiency. It began by creating a central information technology bureau allowing any person to access government information and continued with conferences promoting the concept of a modern administration and other efforts to redefine the relationship between citizens and the state.

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