Over four million line up to take civil servant test

Over four million line up to take civil servant test

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Over 4.5 millions candidates faced various challenges on
Wednesday to take part in the civil service recruitment
examination, the first to be held simultaneously throughout the
country by all the recruiting government agencies.

The applicants, who are vying for 204,584 vacancies in various
government institutions at all levels, faced various hurdles and
not a few technical glitches during the one-day written test.

In Jakarta, over 4,000 candidates sitting the test at the Bung
Karno sports stadium in Senayan, Central Jakarta, had to brace
drizzle and high winds while struggling to fill the computerized
answer sheets.

The candidates also had to put up with apparent incompetence
on the part of the organizers as they had to wait for about an
hour before the test kicked off because the examination materials
arrived late.

The candidates also had to contend with heavy morning traffic
before reaching the test locations. In the Pondok Gede Haj
dormitory in East Jakarta, one of the test locations, a three-
kilometer-long traffic jam led to many candidates arriving late
for the test.

In Jambi, Sumatra, Garut in West Java, Gianyar in Bali, Biak
in Papua, and in East Java, the organizers also had to delay the
tests as the materials failed to arrive on time.

In East Java, the recruitment tests in 38 regencies were not
held simultaneously as PT Panca Wira Usaha Jatim, the company
hired to print the examination materials, failed to meet the
Tuesday deadline of distributing the papers.

Organizers had started to copy the papers themselves when the
East Java governor decided to postpone the test altogether.

In Yogyakarta, speculation was rife that the papers had been
leaked beforehand.

Some candidates told The Jakarta Post that they had prior
knowledge of the questions.

Although how the questions had leaked out was not immediately
clear, some candidates suspected that it was the work of "people
from Jakarta."

Despite the problems, Coordinating Minister for People's
Welfare Alwi Shihab said that the recruitment examination had
proceeded smoothly across the country.

Alwi also pledged that the overall test and marking process
would be carried out honestly, transparently and accountably. "No
corruption, collusion or nepotism will be involved," Alwi was
quoted by Antara as saying.

The results of Wednesday's written test will be announced on
Dec. 27. Afterwards, the applicants who pass the written test
will have to go through another two stages -- a psychological
test and a medical evaluation.

Of the 204,584 vacancies, 27,021 positions are for health
professionals in the Ministry of Health, 76,583 for teachers and
lecturers in the Ministry of National Education, 42,000 for
teachers and lecturers in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and
58,000 for technical and strategic positions in various
government agencies.

The Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) estimated that in 2004,
open unemployment in the country stood at 10.5 million. An
average of 2.5 million people enter the labor market annually,
and with economic growth standing at around 4 percent per year,
only about 1.6 million of the new job-seekers will be able to
find positions.

Against a backdrop of persistently tight labor conditions, the
hope of landing a civil service job, with its guarantee of
lifetime employment and various fringe benefits, has encouraged
vast numbers of applicants to participate in the recruitment
processes held individually by government agencies over the past
years.

Despite calls for streamlining of the bloated and corrupt
bureaucracy, the administration of former president Megawati
Soekarnoputri decided earlier this year to recruit an additional
200,000 public servants.