The Ministry of Public Administration (MJU) is setting aside nearly €150,000 at the end of the year to fund various IT training programs for public sector employees. The goal? To boost digital skills in government, train staff on electronic document management systems, and improve eLearning platforms.
This is all outlined in the 2025 Annual Adult Education Plan, with all activities scheduled for the last quarter of the year.
The biggest chunk €60,000 will go toward training administrators on how to use the Open Data Portal (data.gov.me), This platform, which shares public data form government institutions, was relaunched in December 2024 after nearly two years of downtime. The ministry says this is just the beginning, and they plan to actively promote open data and encourage institutions to contribute.
MJU Minister Maraš Dukaj stressed the importance of government agencies being proactive in making public data available. The Open Data Portal was originally launched in 2018, following legal changes in 2017. However, it was offline for a period due to a cyberattack on Montenegro`s IT infrastructure in August 2022.
What`s the Training Budget Being Spent On?
According to the 2025 plan, the training budget will be split as follows:
- €60,000 – Training 50 administrators from government, private sector, and NGOs on using the Open Data Portal.
- €30,000 – Specialized IT training for MJU employees (six courses planned).
- €30,000 – Training 400 government employees and 50 administrators to use the electronic document management system and e-government meeting tools.
- €10,000 – Teaching 100 employees how to use digital signatures for electronic documents.
- €10,000 – Improving the Digital Academy e-Learning platform and developing 20 new training programs.
Interestingly, a report on 2024 training revealed that planned basic computer courses for government employees never actually happened, even though they were meant to improve key digital skills.
Investing in digital skills is great, especially when governments are pushing for more online services. But seeing that basic computer training wasn`t even delivered in 2024, I wonder if this new budget will actually translate into real skills or just another bureaucratic checkbox exercise. If done right, this could steamline government work and improve efficiency, but if not, well … we might just see another report next year listing all the courses that didn`t happen. Let`s hope for the best!
Written by our correspondent A.A.
