With regard of the implementation of the Law on Saving and Anti-wastage, in a session of the recent Government Conference, prime minister Phan Van Khai strongly criticized the wastages in the system of state officials and civil servants via studies. How is this practice? In a recent interview, Tran Xuan Gia, head of the prime minister research committee talked about this matter. Excerpts:

Just study ...for fun.

Gia said: “Studies of state officials and civil servants in our country, from low to high level officials, still remain many problems. These problems are expanding widely in many fields, from state officials’ studying professionals to receiving the spirit of Central Resolutions. I think that this situation is really worrisome; so we must stiffly criticize to change it”.

You have talked about existing issues. Could you specify them?

There are many things to say about this situation, but I only can take some typical examples. First of all, concerning officials’ studies currently, apparently it seems that more attention is paid to the officials training task. Most state agencies annually invest and build plans for this work. However, practice indicates a worrisome issue that officials and civil servants are allowed to study in many consecutive courses continuously. However, ironically, those are very free and even sometimes have nothing to do in their agencies, so they are arranged for studying so much. Therefore, a humorous result is gained that although some officials obtain many degrees and certificates, their actual contribution to the agencies and state seems nothing. Meanwhile, in those agencies, many people who should be trained are too busy and do not have enough conditions to study.

That is the cause resulted from the internal personnel arrangement in state agencies. What are there any other issues?

I say about the purpose of the study. The study hereby is used for just short-term purposes rather than the actual and long-term work. I mean the study is to upgrade their positions and levels to meet the standards of officials rather than the demand of the actual work. Some state officials regard the study as a liability. They are only afraid they would be criticized if they did not do so rather than they think this study would serve the actual purpose of the work.
One book used to read for everyone.

What you mentioned above is issues concerning students (officials and civil servants). How about the civil servant training and teaching agencies?

The way of training and organization in training also remains many negative points. I recall the introduction and studying resolutions are very necessary, but resolutions of the Party are wanted to come in force, these resolutions must be turned into mechanisms, policies, legal documents. We often allow the time of studying the Resolutions separate with issues of each student. One year, the Party issues two resolutions (after the two cabinets) to popularise for state officials and civil servants and for every one, no one is exclusive.
However, there is no specific classification of civil servants in a class. People who make policies must study together with people who implement those policies. A teacher studies with a customs official or tax collector...
Even, when the courses of the resolutions of Party Congress are opened, compilers of these resolutions also must participate those courses to study very what they wrote.

People who are in charge of teaching the resolutions may be the ones who only hold high-ranking posts in the Party rather than the ones who built these resolutions. Of course, the resolutions are the products of collectives rather than any individual, but on occasion of this, I want to criticize that such training organisation style for some civil servants is literally useless and wasteful. Therefore, it is said in a sense of humour that studying the resolutions of the Party is like somebody uses one book to read for everyone to listen.

What is the consequence of this matter?

Subsequently, the capacity of state officials cannot meet the required demand, which makes the quality of serving people and businesses bad.

I take the annual review as a typical example. This was tabled in a session of the Government Conference.
Normally, when each year ends, civil servants themselves will have to review what they have done in the year. However, many civil servants could not record how much work and what specific work they have done in that year. What they could say is “never came late”, or “participated this program or that subject”. The word “participated” is so vague that they could only attend at just one meeting in the whole year to discuss that work, which is also called “already participated”.

That is so. Why doesn’t each of them say that over the past year “I have compiled two documents, of which one was accepted and another one not”? What is a job that authorities should do at once?

In my opinion, upon the prime minister talking about this issue, the Ministry of Interior and system of schools must assess and conclude civil servants’ studying and training to soon propose a new and more effective direction for civil servant training programmes and seek how to build a really professional administrative system.

Thank you.

Tien Phong Newspaper 22/3/2006