Rehumanising the Public Service and the COVID-19 Response: Where is the National School of Government? / Réhumanisation du service public et la réponse à la COVID-19 : où en est l’École nationale de formation des agents de la fonction publique ?/ Re-humanizar o serviço público e a resposta à Covid-19: onde está a escola nacional do governo?

Abstract

Discourses regarding human beings require conscientiousness because of our complex cognitive abilities to reason and communicate. This is evident in what human beings have been able to achieve in terms of their development over centuries. As part of formalising this discourse, the epistemological function of universities -especially faculties of humanities - has demonstrated how science and new discoveries can impact on human beings or make them aware of certain factors. These factors are behavioural, environmental, political, economic or otherwise, and are central in influencing how we construct our daily realities and belief systems. There is no doubt that negative experiences tend to repeat themselves unless they are consciously dealt with. In some cases, recidivism happens quickly; like the denial that “Apartheid was a crime against humanity” (BBC 2020). Thus, carefully constructed interventions of any kind should be able to benefit humankind in order to receive any amount of recognition and respect. The South African public sector has demonstrated a dire state of aafirs and a need to rehumanise its employees. This is necessary to ensure a humanitarian public service; following several years of dysfunctional state institutions and the brazen corruption experienced during the COVID-19 period. Vil-Nkomo's (2015) editorial was dedicated to leaders including South Africans such as Nelson Mandela and Albert Luthuli, who were bestowed the Nobel Prize for Peace. Alfred Nobel's view on this particular award was that it shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding years “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses” (Nobel 1891). In this way, the personas of Mandela and Luthuli (and their eminent contemporaries) should serve to embody our current beliefs in rehumanising our public service. These examples need to be deeply rooted in the education and training systems of our society, public service and our dealing with the country's public aafirs. Thus, those among us who are able to emulate and embody these high moral standards should be given an opportunity to serve as political leaders and public servants.