SUN WUKONG State exams are no monkey business
By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - Last week, a municipal court in Shenzhen began the trial of a
mid-ranking official with the city's Bureau of Human Resources for allegedly
taking bribes of nearly 1 million yuan (US$146,394) over the past seven years
to help people pass civil service entrance exams with various local government
departments.
The accused official is by no means a big fish, nor is the amount of dirty
money he allegedly accepted very big compared with other cases of government
graft. Still, the case has aroused grave concerns with the public.
There are two main reasons for the consternation. In the first
place, state-run civil service examinations are generally regarded as somewhat
sacred - and certainly above corruption.
In a 1994 reform of the civil service, China began to introduce unified exams
for candidates applying for posts at all levels. This was meant to resume a
tradition that could be traced to China's Tang Dynasty (618-707 AD), in which
all officials were selected from the nation's Confucian scholars through state
exams. The rationale was to give every scholar an equal opportunity and to
ensure that the government could recruit talented employees. It was during this
time that state tests were linked to Confucian tradition and subsequently
revered. During this period, scandals or rules violations often resulted in
death.
The resumption of the state civil service exams has been popular with the
public. The move is seen as an effective check on nepotism, and as fair to all
candidates for government posts. Because of the Confucian tradition and the
fact that no money is involved, people have seldom suspected official
corruption.
Some of those shocked by the Shenzhen case have expressed their fury in online
chat-rooms. The power center must launch "a thorough investigation to see if
this is just an isolated case. If there are more such cases, then the state
exam system is completely a failure," a blogger wrote on the website of
Guangzhou Daily. "Is there any clean soil in our society nowadays?" wrote
another.
Other bloggers have demanded to know what will happen to the 20 or so people
who bribed their way into the government in Shenzhen. "They must be dismissed
to set an example for those who may attempt to become civil servants in any
dishonorable way," several bloggers wrote.
The second reason that the case has aroused wide concern is competition. Today,
landing a job with the government is extremely difficult, prompting more people
to emphasize fairness in the recruitment process.
In the 1980s, when China was in the early stage of economic reform, many people
declined job opportunities in the civil service because of the low salaries.
Instead, most chose to chase after money so as to become "rich first". Quite a
number of officials even resigned to "jump into the sea of commerce".
But times have changed. More and more people now realize that it is not easy to
become wealthy. Stable, well-paid employment is now the goal of the majority of
the working population. With significant pay raises in recent years and other
benefits offered, such as housing subsidies, free medical care and lifetime
retirement stipends, civil service posts have become increasingly attractive,
particularly to new university graduates.
Due to the fast expansion of college-level education, China now has some 5
million university graduates each year. The vast number makes it increasingly
hard for them to find suitable jobs. According to a survey co-sponsored by the
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League, 70% of the graduates
in 2007 could not find jobs on graduation. A university degree is required to
qualify for a civil service post.
There is a popular saying among young graduates that a post in the central
government is like a "golden rice bowl", a job in a provincial government a
"silver rice bowl", and a municipal post is a "copper rice bowl". Even a job in
a township bureaucracy, the lowest in the China's administrative hierarchy, is
considered an "iron rice bowl".
According to preliminary statistics by the Ministry of Human Resources and
Social Security, some 1.04 million qualified candidates enrolled for October
24-25 exams for 13,000 vacancies in central government departments and
institutions. On average, 80 candidates compete for a single job. This ratio is
up from last year when it was 60 to 1.
Local governments have yet to release their statistics. However, according to
scattered reports so far, the competitions were typically fierce. In Chongqing
municipality, 2,317 candidates competed for one vacancy in the municipal bureau
of seismology. In Wuxi city in Jiangsu province, 4,125 fought for a job in the
local customs office. In Xiamen city in Fujian province, 10,205 candidates
chased after three jobs in customs.
All these candidates have already met educational and physical requirements -
the exams are the final step. This means an increased sensitivity to the
competition's fairness. "I'll have nothing to complain about if I don't perform
in the exam as well as others. But the competition must be a fair play," a
candidate in Guangzhou said.
It is not hard to imagine how candidates would react on learning of cheating or
corruption. These candidates are the social elite, after all, and their
justifiable anger could have serious consequences for social stability.
In the past, Confucian scholars occasionally boycotted the state exams en masse
or rebelled when they found that graft had influenced their exams. From this
perspective, it may not be coincidental that Chinese authorities have made the
court trial of a minor Shenzhen human resources official a high-profile public
event. This could be described as "Killing a chicken to scare the monkeys", as
the old Chinese saying goes, designed to frighten prospective cheaters and
corrupt officials.
The Shenzhen official, if convicted, must be punished in accordance with the
law. But what about the so-called "monkeys" and the system that nurtured them?
This is a question authorities must answer if they intend on retaining the
people's longstanding confidence in the state examination system.
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