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.