Nograles urges gov't workers to avail of CSC's financial education program
By Dhel Nazario
Civil Service Commission (CSC) Chairperson Karlo Nograles urged civil servants to avail themselves of the financial education program to be offered soon by the agency.

Nograles made the statement during the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) virtual 5th Financial Education Stakeholders Expo on Monday, Nov. 21. He stated that CSC is already laying the groundwork for the Financial Education Program for Civil Servants, a joint initiative between CSC, BSP, and the BDO Foundation.
The said program aims to provide civil servants with knowledge, skills, and values on concepts such as financial planning, saving, budgeting, debt management, investments, financial scam prevention, and consumer protection, among others. It intends to promote financial literacy and enables them to apply their learnings to financial decision-making.
“This will help us achieve our goal of enhancing the well-being of our government workforce through financial literacy, capacitating them with skills and knowledge that allow them to make informed and better decisions on their financial resources,” Nograles said.
He also stated that financial education is all the more important as the public continues to cope with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and prepare for future financial challenges. With this initiative, he said that they hope will make better choices about saving, know when and when not to borrow money, learn how to invest and better prepare for retirement, and also discern how to protect themselves in this time of digital financial transactions or online banking.
As part of the program, the CSC has developed modules and has established a pool of trainers, who were then tapped for the pilot run of the financial education training in the CSC. Four batches of training were conducted during the pilot run, with a total of 186 participants.
“We are currently expanding this pool in preparation for the CSC’s rollout of the financial education training for other government agencies beginning in 2023,” he said.
“To further institutionalize the adoption of the financial education training in the CSC, we formulated an internal enabling policy to ensure the inclusion of financial education in the training and/or wellness programs for the CSC’s more than 1,000 workforce,” he added.
The CSC chief is hopeful that the financial education program would redound to better public service.
He mentioned that the CSC believes that HR excellence and quality public service delivery can only be realized when people’s needs are taken care of. When civil servants attain financial stability and security, they are more able to contribute to workplace productivity.