The Galician School of Public Administration (Escola Galega de Administración Pública – EGAP) is an autonomous body within the Government of Galicia whose remit is to train the personnel in the service of the public administration in the autonomous community of Galicia. In recent years, it has also encouraged a certain opening up towards citizens, giving them access to some of its activities.
Over the last decade, EGAP has been encouraging the use of the e-administration and substantial efforts have been made to increase the number of courses about information and communication technology, but without including this offer within a specific road map or project.
This shortcoming became even more urgent after the introduction of new, far-reaching regulatory changes, aimed at modernising the Spanish Administration, which obliged the Government of Galicia to implement new applications to be used on a daily basis by both public employees and citizens. This generated a degree of legal and technological insecurity for users. Consequently, in 2019 the project EGAP Innovate Universe was launched to address these issues.
The main objective of the project is to offer, to public employees and citizens, practical and dynamic training in those settings which have been most affected by the implementation of the electronic administration. Secondary objectives are:
- improving the qualification and professionalisation of public employees;
- generating fruitful interactions between public employees and citizens;
- achieving more efficient public services, offering greater attention to the public;
- capturing, analysing and disseminating the needs of users;
- transforming the school’s physical and virtual classrooms into learning spaces based on participation and collaboration.
The EGAP Innovate Universe project entails breaking with the traditional scheme of training (comprehensive courses with a high theory load) to embrace methods much more practical, dynamic and specific, designed to facilitate the use of e-government and to encourage interaction between citizens and the public sector. This enables individuals to be trained rapidly and effectively, responding to specific needs in essential areas for the digital administration.