The Civil Service Question
If you had aspirations of being a civil servant in fifteenth century China, then there would be the very real chance that you would be dead before you took up your appointment. And the reason is simple. You would have to endure a grueling three day civil service entrance exam with very little mobility and with tonnes and tonnes of texts to be examined on.
You see the Chinese Confucian bureaucracy at the time, entailed that aspirants for civil service had to endure and submit to an intensive three stage test.
And if you thought by "test", I mean a series of papers, then you are in the wrong. The theory was the easiest part. You had to survive the exam room first. According to one European traveler quoted by Niall Ferguson, the exam room, was made of tiny brick compartments which were 1.1 metres deep, 1 metre wide and 1.7 metres high. The candidates were not allowed to move out of their rooms for the entire duration of the examination and would stay under observation through out. The same compartment would be used for lodging, while a passage was made for servants for the conveyance of food and human waste. (Ferguson 2011)
The whole point was that after three nights in a "shoe-box" it would be the most able bodied, the most motivated and the most disciplined that would be charged with implementing government policy. Because of the physical demands of the process and its huge psychological toll, it wasn't uncommon for fatalities to occur during the exam. Just to give you an idea, the exam had a strong emphasis on the four voluminous parts of the Confucian philosophy and as such candidates were required to memorize at least a bewildering and daunting 431, 286 characters, not to mention a number of essays in between.
While we might think this approach was rather extreme and probably rewarded conformity over innovation, it is not hard to comprehend the importance that the Confucian bureaucracy placed on a well functioning civil service machinery. It is the only way that government policy can be actualized with minimum wastage and maximum efficiency.
In 2012 October, I had the privilege of attending a series of courses in South Korea at the Central Officials Training Institute (COTI). The training was organised by the Korean government who desired to have their new civil service recruits to commune and interact with young technocrats from other countries. These new recruits had been through a challenging civil service entrance exam, though not as physically and psychologically demanding as 15th century China, but important and demanding enough to have necessitated many of these recruits to have taken a year after completion of their mainstream studies to prepare for the civil service entrance exam.
Upon interaction with these budding young people it dawned on me just how much a career in the civil service meant to them. Of course South Korea is not the only country that carries out tests to determine the suitability of those that want to work in the civil service but I was genuinely surprised at how seriously this exam is taken and even more bewildered by the high failure rate. It shows a country that is bent on having a well functioning civil service.
Obviously, there is a chasm between passing a demanding exam and actual performance in the job. However it is undeniable that this chasm is considerably reduced when a competent and well managed screening process is implemented. The chances of incompetence are minimized. In addition, once the examination has been passed, COTI organises a number of training workshops and international trips to acquaint new civil servants to industry best practice and help them built liaisons with the rest of the world. Among those in my group were people who had been attached to institutions in Singapore, India and even Brazil to help them broaden their horizons.
I have for long listened with sickening monotony to tales of civil service incompetence in Zambia. Even Ministers are on record bemoaning the lack of a professional civil service committed to service delivery. Civil Service entrance examinations can go a long way in helping attract high caliber individuals and improving the general performance and perception of our civil service. Zambia already has the institutional framework in place with the presence of our National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA). NIPA can be used as a spring board to put in motion the operationalisation of a professional civil service. Originally, NIPA was envisaged as an institution that would help government workers train in administration and other managerial disciplines that would help them better perform their duties. However a combination of lack of funding and the ever increasing demand for tertiary education has seen the institute veer into a direction which am not entirely happy about, but which they can do little to rectify or avoid.
NIPA can be our own COTI. Blooding both new and old civil servants into the intricacies of policy implementation. Afterall, policy on paper is just that. It can only translate into meaningful action, if it is implemented. And it can only be implemented efficiently by an equally efficiently functioning civil service. Admittedly there is a cost to it. But would you rather pay the price of incompetence?
You see the Chinese Confucian bureaucracy at the time, entailed that aspirants for civil service had to endure and submit to an intensive three stage test.
And if you thought by "test", I mean a series of papers, then you are in the wrong. The theory was the easiest part. You had to survive the exam room first. According to one European traveler quoted by Niall Ferguson, the exam room, was made of tiny brick compartments which were 1.1 metres deep, 1 metre wide and 1.7 metres high. The candidates were not allowed to move out of their rooms for the entire duration of the examination and would stay under observation through out. The same compartment would be used for lodging, while a passage was made for servants for the conveyance of food and human waste. (Ferguson 2011)
The whole point was that after three nights in a "shoe-box" it would be the most able bodied, the most motivated and the most disciplined that would be charged with implementing government policy. Because of the physical demands of the process and its huge psychological toll, it wasn't uncommon for fatalities to occur during the exam. Just to give you an idea, the exam had a strong emphasis on the four voluminous parts of the Confucian philosophy and as such candidates were required to memorize at least a bewildering and daunting 431, 286 characters, not to mention a number of essays in between.
While we might think this approach was rather extreme and probably rewarded conformity over innovation, it is not hard to comprehend the importance that the Confucian bureaucracy placed on a well functioning civil service machinery. It is the only way that government policy can be actualized with minimum wastage and maximum efficiency.
Exam room
In 2012 October, I had the privilege of attending a series of courses in South Korea at the Central Officials Training Institute (COTI). The training was organised by the Korean government who desired to have their new civil service recruits to commune and interact with young technocrats from other countries. These new recruits had been through a challenging civil service entrance exam, though not as physically and psychologically demanding as 15th century China, but important and demanding enough to have necessitated many of these recruits to have taken a year after completion of their mainstream studies to prepare for the civil service entrance exam.
Upon interaction with these budding young people it dawned on me just how much a career in the civil service meant to them. Of course South Korea is not the only country that carries out tests to determine the suitability of those that want to work in the civil service but I was genuinely surprised at how seriously this exam is taken and even more bewildered by the high failure rate. It shows a country that is bent on having a well functioning civil service.
Obviously, there is a chasm between passing a demanding exam and actual performance in the job. However it is undeniable that this chasm is considerably reduced when a competent and well managed screening process is implemented. The chances of incompetence are minimized. In addition, once the examination has been passed, COTI organises a number of training workshops and international trips to acquaint new civil servants to industry best practice and help them built liaisons with the rest of the world. Among those in my group were people who had been attached to institutions in Singapore, India and even Brazil to help them broaden their horizons.
I have for long listened with sickening monotony to tales of civil service incompetence in Zambia. Even Ministers are on record bemoaning the lack of a professional civil service committed to service delivery. Civil Service entrance examinations can go a long way in helping attract high caliber individuals and improving the general performance and perception of our civil service. Zambia already has the institutional framework in place with the presence of our National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA). NIPA can be used as a spring board to put in motion the operationalisation of a professional civil service. Originally, NIPA was envisaged as an institution that would help government workers train in administration and other managerial disciplines that would help them better perform their duties. However a combination of lack of funding and the ever increasing demand for tertiary education has seen the institute veer into a direction which am not entirely happy about, but which they can do little to rectify or avoid.
NIPA can be our own COTI. Blooding both new and old civil servants into the intricacies of policy implementation. Afterall, policy on paper is just that. It can only translate into meaningful action, if it is implemented. And it can only be implemented efficiently by an equally efficiently functioning civil service. Admittedly there is a cost to it. But would you rather pay the price of incompetence?
The challenge I think is that some people get into civil service for the wrong reasons. They go into it for job security, allowances and an opportunity to build a house. It is rarely to serve. When I flirted with the idea of joining the civil service, I wanted to do so because I thought it would give me time to do other things, it was never to be of service. I have a lot of challenges and a lot to say about our civil service but it seriously needs a shake up and radical reforms because currently it is performing below par.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Frustrated Brotha. I agree with you entirely as pertaining to the reasons people join the civil service. Even when I interact with former classmates who are now in the civil service, talk invariably revolves around how much free time they have, the allowances for attending conferences both within and out side Zambia and so forth. Something needs ti be done and soon.
DeleteKeith,
ReplyDeleteI like your probe on most issues including this wide debate on the civil service. Yours is analysis based on deep thought and it offers solutions. I couldn't agree with you any more than this... the efficiency in the civil service has it's roots on the recruitment process into civil service or any other organisation for that matter.
Alas all we see is recruitment that is based on tribalism, nepotism,corruption etc... There are people in our country that would tell you that in order to get a job in Zambia you have to have the right 'connections'. Unless we get these jobs on merit and through thorough recruitment processes outputs will suffer as a consequence.
At one of his interactions with the youths, President Museveni observed that the worst that has ever happened to Africa is the Civil Service, literally meaning that this bunch is just there for the money and not policy implementation or advise to policticians who at most times wont know a thing about development.
ReplyDeleteMr Mbewe, thank you for your comments and your support is also appreciated.
ReplyDelete