Breakthrough in ethnic minority personnel policy
(Baonghean) - Good news for ethnic minority communities, especially ethnic minority students: last week, the Ministry of Interior and the Committee for Ethnic Minorities Affairs signed a joint circular on policies for ethnic minority cadres, civil servants, and public employees, which officially came into effect on November 1, 2014.
This joint circular contains many new points aimed at concretizing the priorities in the Party and State's ethnic policies, creating more favorable conditions to ensure an increase in both the quantity and quality of ethnic minority people in the cadre, civil servant, and public employee apparatus. This circular opens up great job opportunities for the children of ethnic minorities nationwide, including more than 440,000 ethnic minority people in Nghe An province.
A notable highlight of the Circular is the establishment of a separate recruitment process for ethnic minorities in civil servants and public employees in each province. This represents a comprehensive and synchronized development in the preferential policies of the Party and State towards ethnic minorities, from education and training to recruitment. Separating ethnic minorities into a separate recruitment examination is a reasonable and necessary priority. This is because the majority of ethnic minorities live primarily in mountainous, remote, and isolated areas. These regions, despite receiving numerous preferential policies, still face significant socio-economic difficulties, high poverty rates, and limited opportunities for education, training, and personal development compared to those in lowland and urban areas.
Therefore, organizing a separate recruitment exam will certainly create a better mindset and attitude for the majority of applicants. At the same time, it provides an opportunity for applicants from the same region to compete on equal terms. Even though ethnic minority applicants receive preferential treatment, they still need to strive for success if they want to achieve good results. Because, even without facing the somewhat unbalanced competition of a general recruitment exam, applicants in the same exam still face competition. Therefore, conducting a separate exam demonstrates a preferential policy while ensuring fair competition among members of the same ethnic minority group.
The second noteworthy point of this Joint Circular is the clearly defined proportion of ethnic minority cadres, civil servants, and public employees participating in agencies and units within the political system at all levels, from the central to the commune and town levels; prioritizing the planning and appointment of ethnic minority cadres, civil servants, and public employees. This proportion will be based on socio-economic orientations and the needs of each locality, and will be implemented through annual recruitment periods. This is the basis for ensuring the increase in both the quantity and quality of ethnic minority people in the civil servant and public employee workforce. In reality, despite the regular and continuous implementation of many preferential policies, the proportion of ethnic minorities in the ranks of cadres, civil servants, and public employees remains low. Even in some specialized agencies responsible for ethnic affairs and implementing ethnic minority policies, the participation of ethnic minorities is still not fully ensured in terms of both quantity and quality.
Another new point in the Circular is that those selected through the government scholarship program will be assigned jobs after graduation without having to take civil service exams. This is a breakthrough in the policy of prioritizing ethnic minorities in the introduction, training, and utilization of local human resources after training. This decision is a significant step forward in implementing the policy of prioritizing ethnic minorities and will be an important and positive encouragement for students trained under the government scholarship program. In reality, many students who have graduated from universities and colleges still lack employment.
In our province, in many districts, the number of unemployed students who graduated from the government-sponsored scholarship program reaches dozens. In Ky Son district alone, in 2013, 13 graduates from this program were unable to find stable employment. This has somewhat negatively impacted the government-sponsored scholarship program – a humane policy demonstrating the Party and State's concern and priority for ethnic minorities. Therefore, assigning jobs to these graduates without requiring them to pass a recruitment exam, or in other words, directly recruiting them, is a necessary decision to promptly address the shortcomings of the current scholarship program.
However, for this Circular to be implemented effectively and yield positive results, there is still much to be done. When implementing preferential policies, there are always individuals who exploit the priority given for the common good to prioritize their own interests and gain personal profit. Therefore, based on the Joint Circular of the Ministry of Interior and the Committee for Ethnic Minorities Affairs on policies for cadres, civil servants, and public employees of ethnic minorities, Party committees and governments at all levels must pay more attention to and improve the planning, training, and recruitment of ethnic minority cadres based on actual needs; following the principle of creating a pool of cadres through training and screening through grassroots movements...
It can be affirmed that the joint circular issued by the Ministry of Interior and the Committee for Ethnic Minorities on policies for ethnic minority cadres, civil servants, and public employees is a significant event during the provincial-level Congress of Ethnic Minorities, leading up to the National Congress of Ethnic Minorities!
Ngo Kien
