Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW Vol. 5 Num 836 Mon. October 02, 2006       Letters to Editor Our bureaucracy Faisal M Rahman, On e-mail On August 8, 2006, the audience and hosts of Agamir Kontho (The Voice of Tomorrow) stated that in the future the quality of the bureaucracy would be mediocre, because meritorious students are reluctant to join the Bangladesh Civil Service. Desire to immigrate and pursue higher studies abroad, fear of being posted outside Dhaka, conducive working conditions in non-government agencies, corruption and a recruitment system characterised by anachronistic examination methods, leakage of question papers, nepotism, manipulation, long waiting periods were cited as some of the factors which discourage them. Such perceptions do not accurately portray the quality of prospective civil service candidates or people serving in the bureaucracy. When Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan, people primarily with a liberal arts or science background appeared for the examinations. However, now people who have studied engineering, medicine and agriculture also take the examinations. There are also a larger number of people competing for each available post. As a result, obtaining a job with the civil service has become extremely competitive. This ensures that barring those who are recruited on the basis of quotas, only the best are selected. Educational and training opportunities are also provided to recruits in Bangladesh and abroad, some people who have attended training or educational programmes overseas have migrated, candidates receive training on a diverse range of functional skills and state of the art technologies\techniques\ methods and many obtain employment abroad. These factors have attracted people with commendable academic records. Furthermore, widespread corruption, nepotism, manipulation takes place under the façade of job reservations for women and minorities in development financing institutions, NGOs, commercial organisations, research academic institutes. As a result, recruitment procedures are inconsistent and the quality of people working in these institutions is questionable. Commercial enterprises, MNCs, NGOs and development financing agencies also post employees outside Dhaka. Hence contrary to the views expressed in the programme, Bangladesh will not have a mediocre bureaucracy in the future. Civil service personnel are well trained, educated and continue to perform well, despite being poorly paid.