Civil service exam begins
▶ Highlights political quality, moral conduct
Applications for the 2020 China’s national civil service exam began on Tuesday, which puts a premium on the candidates’ political qualities and will recruit for the country’s grassroots departments.
The State Administration of Civil Service (SACS) said more than 24,000 posts in 86 central government departments and 23 of their subordinate departments are open, 10,000 more than last year.
It the first national civil service exam since the revised Civil Servant Law took effect on June 1, the SACS said. The new law, which aims to facilitate civil service reform, states that well-performing civil servants should be rewarded, and those who fail in their performance appraisals could face demotion.
Reports said this year’s exam will strengthen political reviews, which means candidates’ political beliefs, positions, consciousness and performance will be especially checked. It aims to ensure that newly recruited civil servants will be people of political quality and good moral conduct.
Those punished for committing crimes, expelled from the Communist Party of China and included in the country’s social credit list as a credit breaker, are disqualified from taking the exam.
The examinees’ political accomplishments have two aspects: One is to assess knowledge of political theories on the exam, and the other is their personal resume, Zhu Lijia, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance in Beijing, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
“Civil servants provide public service on behalf of the government. Allowing those who have credit or other moral problems into the team is a disservice to the people,” Zhu stressed.
In 2017, China, on the way to build the world’s largest e-social credit and joint punishment system, started to restrict dishonest personnel from applying for civil service positions.
Outstanding applicants will be encouraged to work in lower-level positions, especially in remote and impoverished regions. More than 2,700 posts at the village-level are reserved for graduates, the SACS said.
About 77.3 percent of those recruited will fill positions up to the county level governments. Applicants with more than two years’ work experience at the lower-level will be favored.
Zhu stressed that developing grassroots society is vital to a country’s transition to a modern society. Therefore, the number and quality of civil servants in grassroots governments are being stressed.
“Civil servants should have worked in grassroots governments, whose promotion would also depend on their behavior at the grassroots level,” Ren Jianming, a professor at the School of Public Administration of Beihang University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Ren said grassroots experience helps officials directly contact with the public and know their needs. He added that applicants’ political accomplishments need to be cultivated and examined long-term.