Senior officials within the public service are training to become mentors to about 300 newly-recruited clerks, the government said.

The new recruits themselves are also undergoing training, doing a course designed by the Staff Development Organisation within the Office of the Prime Minister aimed at teaching them the ropes of the large and complex organisation that is the public service.

At the end of the training programme, the new entrants will be more familiar with the regulations and ethics that bind public officers and have a clearer picture of the government and administrative set-up in Malta.

They will be guided by senior officers undergoing the mentoring programme that is based on standards developed from accredited programmes in the UK and includes practical mentoring sessions and continuous review of learning and applications of learning.

The mentoring sessions are being facilitated by Katie Birch, who has many years of experience in training mentors. She is a founder member of the Malta Mentoring Society and an associate member of the European Mentoring Association.