Abstract of Learning Case 8
Practice What They Preached: The Challenge of Viability for the Civil Service Training Institute of Thailand

The Civil Service Training Institute, the government agency in charge of training the civil servants of Thailand, is facing issues of privatization.

The budget cuts due to the economic crisis in Thailand had affected the operations of the CSTI drastically. Training, the main operation of the CSTI, ground to a full stop when the training budget was slashed to zero for the first half of 1998.

Continued economic difficulties have compelled the national government to pursue its plans for downsizing and privatization more aggressively. Booz-Allen Consulting, a consulting firm engaged by the national government to develop programs for civil service reform had previously recommended the conversion of the CSTI into an Executive Agency. Implementation of this recommendation seems more likely because of budgetary constrains of the government.

The concept of Executive Agencies is similar to state-owned corporations. Executive Agencies are exempted from civil service regulations. They thus have more financial autonomy as well as freedom from the constraints of security of tenure guaranteed to civil servants.

As an Executive Agency, one scenario is that the CSTI no longer receive the budget for training for the civil servants as it had done in the past. Instead, the training budget might be given to the different agencies of the government and the CSTI will have to sell its training services to these agencies.

Issues of technical capability, pricing, financial sustainability, downsizing, marketing, restructuring, and repositioning are issues that the CSTI will have to face if it becomes an Executive Agency.

This abstract is based on a learning case written by Elmer Soriano, MDM'97, under the supervision of Prof. Soledad A. Hernando, Asian Institute of Management.

All case materials are prepared solely for the purposes of workshop discussion. The cases are neither designed nor intended as illustrations of correct or incorrect management of the problems or issues contained in the case.

This case was written for the International Workshop on Strategic Management and Marketing of Training, held from August 3 to 12, 1998. The workshop is a collaborative effort of the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank (EDI/WB), the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP), and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM).

Copyright © Economic Development Institute / The World Bank (EDI/WB), 1998.