By Shengong Wuji
Translated by Wang jing
The National Civil Service Examination of 2009 is coming. With some indefinable feelings, I wrote down this title. The audience may not understand what it means. Is there any relationship between government agencies and students? Just wait a minute, for there is indeed certain relationship between them.
The key point of this article is to advocate: for all or different levels of the government agencies nowadays, the proportion of students entering the gate of offices right after their graduation seems to become bigger and bigger. I am also the one who goes to government agencies frequently. In my eyes, as for the government agencies today, looking around, there are almost nobody else but college students entering the gate of government right after their graduation. Of course, they have advanced academic degrees, great capability, and the willing of doing more and meaningful things. However, they still carry one big disadvantage. That is the lack of rich social experience and practical working experience in the grass-roots units, which, more or less, marks the the work of government agencies with the feature of "studentization".
Nowadays, China has long become a diversified society, and new cases and new problems emerge with infinite changes. As for all levels of governments, not only perspectiveness, but also harmony and the ability of dealing with emergencies should be stressed together as well. So, for working people of government agencies, social experience, disposing capacity, and working experience seem to be more and more important. The disposal of social problems is far more complicated than solving a equation.
As to my private opinion, the tendency of the "studentizaiton" for government agencies has something to do with the civil service exam which is setting a higher and higher standard and stricter and stricter requirements. Now, people admitted to government agencies all have the fixed baseline for their qualifications as civil servant. The threshold is already fairly high, and it has long been prohibitive from normal people. You must enter the civil service exam unless you are cadres with a post above the assistant section level, who can be correspondingly turned into civil servants. In the past few years, I used to take part in the preparation of the organization of an agency unit. Many were recruited, some of which were quite excellent, and I liked them too. However, some of them could not stay. One of the reasons was they could not pass the correspondent civil service exam.
These excellent cadres with certain working experiences have to face a gigantic group of candidates formed by this year's college graduates. As far as I know, today's college students are basically preparing for three things in their fourth year. One is preparing for going abroad; the second one is preparing for postgraduate study; the third one is preparing for the civil service exam. From months to a whole year, the focus of their life is all about it. So, thinking purely from the ability of examination, there is hardly anybody can compete with them. It is just this kind of competitive power and the ability of going across the "threshold" that made lots of this year's college graduates enter into government agencies. Day after day and year after year, the absolute number of student cadres has been showing a sharp increase.
The author has read a report, which is about the enrollment number of the civil service exam this year. It is said that the number is 1 million and 50 thousand. Does every body know that there were only 87 thousand people signed up for the exam all around the nation when the nation implemented civil service exam 6 years' ago. The number has increased 12 times as many as before. It is also said that the mainstay of the enlisted person for the civil service exam is still this year's college graduates. Though units like the Organization Department of the Central Committee has made new requirements for the civil service exam, for example, it should be stressed that people with grass-roots unit working experience enjoy the privilege, and so on, no body wants to ignore the reality that winners of the written exam are mostly this year's college graduates professionally trained.
It is probable that relevant departments has noticed the tendency of "studentization" in government agencies long before. There have also been many measurements like "practice in a lower unit with certain posts for certain time", which has, however, some defects after all. For example, there is a time limit, and the person can not practice in the real post. The actual result is not quite satisfiable. The other day, I ran into a one-year-tenure Deputy County Chief who was supposed to assist the First Deputy County Chief to work. He was in charge of everything nominally, while in charge of nothing actually. The most normal work for him is reception. The temporary deputy county chief is actually receiving deputy county chief. He had a temporary post without reaching the aim of practice.
So, the author advises that in order to prevent government agencies from "studentization", it is the only method that the country reforms the existing recruiting system of civil servants. Nothing can be treated with a rigid criteria, and we should "walk on two legs". We should insist the method of recruiting civil servants from examination (of course, college students are included here). However, the proportion of admitted college students should be proper. Meanwhile, we also advise that we should resume the old tradition of insisting selecting cadres from grass-roots levels, so as to enrich the crew of civil servants of all government levels. Relevant criteria can be adjusted according to different situations. Actually, Chairman Hu and Premier Wen are all selected from grass-roots levels. I heard that both of them used to work at grass-roots levels for many years when I was in Gansu province. So, in my opinion, the proportion of cadres from grass-roots must be no less than 70%. Governments like this is more sophisticated.
What makes us joyful is that I have heard from Mayor Han Zheng in a recent meeting that in his opinion, the proportion of "student civil servants" of Shanghai government agencies should be controlled within a proper level. Meanwhile, he also advised that we should provide conditions to encourage cadres without working experience at grass-roots levels to work there. It is no longer a pure "practice in a lower unit with certain posts for certain time", but a settlement in districts, counties, townships and towns with their dossiers.
The author believes that the government serves the public. Knowledge is compulsive and correspondent qualifications should be required. However, it seems that the actual working ability of government agencies is more important.