BEIJING (March 5): Multiple colleges and universities across China are urging their graduates to join the armed forces or find lower-paid jobs in rural areas, rather than competing for increasingly scarce jobs in the country’s Civil Service.
The Ministry of Education says about 11.8 million graduates are expected to come onto the jobs market in 2024, an increase of 210,000 on last year. Tertiary institutions are urging them to recognise that while it is improving, the economy is not nearly as buoyant as it was in previous decades.
They suggest graduates adjust their employment expectations and set realistic goals.
Zhejiang Sci-tech University suggested graduates look beyond the Civil Service and other Government-affiliated institutions.
The university said students could find jobs in small-sized enterprises, working at grassroots level, or join the army.
Observers noted that there has been excessively fierce competition for entrance
into the Civil Service in recent years, resulting in a series of social
problems, including the devaluation of diplomas, the high economic cost of
education, and an unreasonable ratio of investment and return.
Educationalist, Xiong Bingqi said universities needed to serve as a bridge
between graduates and enterprises that needed recruits by organising more job
fairs to help broaden the employment channels for students.
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Big rise in officers shown the door
HONG KONG (February 29): The number of sacked Hong Kong Civil Servants has nearly tripled over the past six years, with authorities saying the stricter handling of serious misconduct cases has been the main cause.
Secretary for the Civil Service, Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan said another reason for the surge in sackings was the failure of some Government workers to get fully inoculated as required during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a paper the Civil Service Bureau has submitted to the Legislative Council, the number of dismissals rose from 21 in the 2017-18 financial year to 52 in 2021-22, before reaching 60 in 2022-23. Another 38 Civil Servants have been fired during the current financial year.
Ms Yeung said other minor reasons for the sackings included violating the Public Order Ordinance, perverting the course of justice, assault, wounding, fighting and conspiracy to defraud.
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Staff ‘worse off than beneficiaries’
BELFAST (March 4): A senior Northern Ireland Civil Servant said some of his staff who administer benefits are receiving less money than the people they deal with.
Permanent Secretary at the Department for Communities, Colum Boyle said he recognised the Department of Finance’s hands were tied and that it felt very badly about the derisory pay increases it could offer.
Most Civil Servants have been offered a five per cent pay increase and a £1,500 ($A2,900) one-off payment for 2023-24. The lowest paid bureaucrats have been offered a 10 per cent increase to bring them up to £23,177 ($A44,886).
Mr Boyle said budget constraints had put intense pressure on his Department — “we are about 1,000 shy of the people we need, to do the work we need to do,” he said.
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Call for return to ethical government
LONDON (March 5): United Kingdom think tank, The Institute for Government, has urged political parties to commit to reform ethical standards for government ahead of the next General Election.
An Institute report has found that two thirds of the public do not think the current Government behaves to high ethical standards, with 45 per cent saying standards of behaviour in Government have got worse since the last General Election in 2019.
The report, Rebuilding Trust in Public Life, contains a series of recommendations for the next Government including refreshing the Ministerial Code, giving the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests more power, and creating proper routes for whistleblowing inside Government.
It also calls for the creation of a permanent Hub for Constitutional Expertise in the Civil Service, a reform it believes can be implemented straight away.
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Identity demands ‘may be unlawful’
MADRID (February 28): Spain’s Data Protection Agency has warned public and private institution against requiring too much identity information from the public, saying it is a risky practice that could infringe on individual privacy.
In a statement, the Agency said it was a frequent practice amongst various groups, ranging from public institutions to hotels and banks, to demand copies of individuals’ National Identity Documents.
“We advocate for a data minimisation principle, with less intrusive identification methods,” the Agency said.
“The National Identity Document holds sensitive information that could, if mishandled, facilitate cyber-crime and scams.”
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Later retirement for long-living officers
KATHMANDU (March 6): Nepal’s long-awaited Federal Civil Service Bill, finally before Parliament, proposes raising the retirement age for bureaucrats from 58 years to 60 – returning it to what it was in 1993.
At that time the average life expectancy for Nepalese was 58 years, while the World Bank now estimates it at 68.
Head of the High-Level Pay Commission, Lilamani Poudyal said this was one of the measures the Commission had suggested to reduce Government expenditure.
According to the Pension Management Office, the pension liability for the Civil Service increased from Rs37 billion ($A4.3 million) in fiscal 2016-17 to around Rs75 billion ($A8.6 million) in 2022-23.
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Former exile to head Government
CONAKRY (March 2): Guinea’s military junta has appointed former Opposition Leader, Mamadou Oury Bah as Prime Minister a week after it abruptly dissolved the Government.
The economist has been a prominent figure on the Guinean political scene since the 1990s. He served as Minister of Reconciliation in the early part of the century in the wake of a political crisis triggered by the killing of at least 130 people in union-led protests.
He later spent four years in exile in France after allegations he was involved in an assassination attempt on then President Alpha Conde in 2011, but returned after Conde pardoned him in 2016.
Guinea is expected to hold elections to restore democratic rule in 10 months.
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UAE to train Seychelles bureaucrats
VICTORIA (March 6): Seychelles and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at modernising and transforming the island nation's Public Service.
The UAE’s Deputy Minister for Cabinet Affairs for Competitiveness and Knowledge Exchange, Abdulla Nasser Lootah, told reporters the MoU would cover a three-year period, with joint action being taken to boost institutional capacities and Government practices.
He noted that a group of 27 senior Seychelles officials had recently graduated from an intensive executive leadership program sponsored by the UAE.
"We are working on the next executive training program to ensure it is tailor-made to Seychelles requirements," Mr Lootah said.
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Runaway train causes rail chaos.
NEW DELHI (March 1): India’s State-owned railways has launched an investigation into how a fully-loaded freight train was left unattended, on a slope, by an engineer who forgot to pull on the emergency brake.
Social media channels shared videos of the driverless train zooming past several stations at high speed. The 53-carriage freight train, loaded with gravel, was on its way from Jammu in northern India to Punjab when it stopped in Kathua for a crew change.
Officials closed off railway crossings on the train's path to avoid accidents. Wooden blocks were then placed on the tracks to reduce the speed of the train and, eventually it was brought it to a stop.
In 2018, about 1,000 passengers had a narrow escape when their train, running from the western State of Gujarat to Odisha in the east, rolled about 11 kilometres without a driver. The driver had also forgotten to apply brakes at a station when the engine was being changed.
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