(LI SHIGONG)

The 2012 Nationwide Civil Servants' Recruitment Exam will put more emphasis on evaluating the virtue of the exam-takers, says the State Administration of Civil Service.

For future recruitment of new civil servants, virtue is even more important than their competence. If an exam-taker has insufficient social responsibility or inadequate sense to serve the public, one should never be admitted as civil servant even if he or she scores high in the examination.

As soon as the news was released, a heated debate started. Some people thought the new regulation was reasonable while others thought it will cause more problems than it will solve.

Supporters say they think virtue as a standard for recruiting civil servants is a good idea. It aims at stopping the decline in morality of civil servants. On the other hand, opponents say it will easily cause inequality or under-the-table deals in the exams, because moral principles, such as one's virtue, are hard to measure or test.

Necessary

Fei Xiang (http://cpc.people.com.cn): No matter if one is a decent human being or a civil servant, one should be virtuous, and anything else doesn't matter. Generally speaking, if a government official violates principles, the reason is often problems with their morality rather than his caliber at work. Therefore, when recruiting civil servants, virtue should be the first and foremost standard because a good civil servant, especially a government official or a leader, should be examples of virtue for society. It's quite necessary to evaluate exam-takers' virtue when recruiting future civil servants, which will make sure the group is virtuous from the beginning.

Li Shuang (http://comment.scol.com.cn): We should continue testing and evaluating exam-takers' virtue when recruiting civil servants. I think it's right to enlarge the proportion of virtue when recruiting civil servants for government departments, because we need morally noble civil servants who can serve people in the country in a better way. As long as a good and constant standard can be set for evaluating virtue in a scientific way, the new regulation should be praised.

Also, it's equally important to supervise long-term civil servants' virtue to build a clean, efficient and dedicated group that makes a worthwhile contribution to society.

Unrealistic

Zhu Shaohua (Yangcheng Evening News): The new regulation says that the government shouldn't admit people who have little social responsibility and little awareness of serving the people. The regulation is very strict but doesn't have a measurable standard. For example, college graduates have similar experiences. How can the government determine who is superior.

This new regulation will also cause breaches of ethics, because it may make it easier for government departments to recruit people who have done under-the-table deals with them.