Organization
Civil Service Commission Regional Office II
Best Practice Focus Area/s
Citizens / Customers Operations
Year Implemented
2015
This is a GBPR 2021 Recognized Best Practice
Summary
The e-NOA and its enhanced version, the e-NOAv2, are specially designed to provide fast, accurate, and paperless notice of school and room assignments to examinees taking the Career Service Commission (CSC) examinations in Region 2 (ROII). This application, which was exclusively developed and used in CSC ROII, aims to lessen the costly and tedious task of manually preparing, sorting, and mailing school and room assignment notice to career service examinees.
Background and Problem
The Civil Service Commission, in its mandate to ensure that appointments in the civil service shall be made according to merit and fitness, administers the nationwide CSE-PPT twice a year. Before the inception of the e-NOA in 2013, the CSC ROII received an average of 10,000 examination applications in one examination period or an average of 20,000 examination applications for the whole year. During those times, the ESD manually sends notices of school and room assignments to examinees through snail mail. Considering the large number of applications, preparing, sorting, and mailing the individual notice of school and room assignments was an ordeal for the Division, which was then manned by only five staff. The time spent by the staff in doing these tasks has affected their efficiency in performing the more important aspects of exam administration. Moreover, it was observed that thousands of mails have been “returned to sender” as the addressees have either moved places or did not provide the correct mailing address, thereby affecting the number of examinee attendance.
Solution and Impact
The e-NOAv2 offers the CS examinees the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to obtain their school and room assignments for the CS exam. All examinees, including those in remote areas without internet connectivity, can obtain information about their school and room assignments through the automatic sending of NOA. If the examinees changed their contact number or did not receive the NOA, they can simply request NOA through the CSC regional and field offices’ hotlines, to which the action officers may reply using the eNOAv2.
The e-NOAv2 works by installing the application on the laptop or desktop computer, android device, or mobile phone of all field offices and ESD personnel in the region so that they can be able to quickly disseminate the NOA in their respective jurisdiction or reply to queries on school and room assignment any time. Also, during the actual examination day, all testing centers are equipped with a pre-installed e-NOAv2 application to facilitate the quick search of room assignments of examinees, if needed.
The CSC ROII has observed a considerable decrease in exam administration costs. The cost of mailing allotted for each examinee was ten pesos. Hence, with 10,000 examinees, the Office saves more than Php 100,000 for mailing services using e-NOA. The e-NOAv2 has contributed to the environment by ensuring zero waste. The CSC ROII has also observed a boost in productivity from ESD staff since the tedious task of manual NOA preparation has been removed.
Furthermore, the CSC ROII communicated with its clients clearly and effectively, ensuring an error-free NOA because of limited human intervention. More importantly, it has facilitated locating school and room assignments on the part of the examinees as they receive their NOA at least a week before the examination day, giving them ample time to visit the school before the test. Moreover, the e-NOAv2 has an added feature that uses Google Maps to help examinees locate their school assignments.
Considering that almost everyone already possesses mobile phones, the CSC ROII has recognized that the e-NOA/e-NOAv2 is the most efficient and effective way to reach its examinees. As a result of the fast and reliable information given to examinees on their school and room assignments, the ESD has observed a remarkable improvement in the number of absent examinees during the examination day.
Milestones
The e-NOA, then later the e-NOAv2, is a distinct practice identifiable to CSC ROII. Because of its perceived advantages and impact, the Examination, Recruitment, and Placement Office (ERPO) of the CSC Central Office and the other Regional Offices have acknowledged the usefulness and efficiency of the e-NOA/e-NOAv2 in improving exam administration. As such, the proponent of the innovation, Mr. Anthony Jay L. Barruga, has been repeatedly invited during learning interventions at the CSC Central Office to share about the e-NOA and requested for possible replication of the application to be used by the other regional offices. Because of these innovations, Mr. Barruga was recognized and conferred the CSC PRAISE Gawad Kahusayan Award in 2015, and the CSC ROII PRAISE Most Outstanding Dependability Award in 2018. He was again awarded the CSC PRAISE Gawad Kahusayan in 2019 for the e-NOAv2.
Aiming to improve the innovation continuously, Mr. Barruga gathers feedback and studies the possibilities of upgrading the features of the current e-NOAv2. As an added new feature, the e-NOAv2 functions as a web-based application wherein information dissemination may be done through e-mail. Further, the e-NOAv2 is now incorporated in the Examination Application Information System (EAISY 2013), a system used in encoding examination applications and serves as a database of information of registered examinees.