Assessing Quality Of Vietnamese Civil Servants

Abstract

Civil servants of any country are all human resources performing public duties and exercising the state power to manage the social development, in spite of having their own characteristics. Quality of civil servants is of concern to countries and has become a topic of evaluating government agencies’ achieved results and performance efficiency. The quality assessment criteria of civil servants are clearly stipulated in Vietnamese law, including ethical qualities, professional qualification, work competence and work results. Thereby, the theoretical framework of this study was developed and a survey to collect opinions of 300 managers of commune-level government agencies was conducted so that the current state of commune – level civil servants’ quality in Vietnam could be assessed. The survey was carried out within 150 communes of 6 provinces representing 3 regions of Vietnam, including: Hung Yen province, Ninh Binh province (Northern region), Nghe An province, Ha Tinh province (Central region), Dong Nai province, Tay Ninh province (Southern region). The results have shown that commune-level civil servants meet quality standards according to provisions of the law. However, local managers don’t highly appreciate the practical work competence of commune-level civil servants. The findings suggest research issues and policy adjustments which should be discussed to improve the quality of Vietnamese civil servants.