The 2010 national civil servant examination started on Dec 5. This is the third consecutive year when more than 1 million candidates are taking the exam. This is a huge increase from the 87,000 candidates who sat for the exam in 2003, says an article on www.hsw.cn. Excerpts:

It is surprising that the government has not received any application for 107 posts this year despite more than 1 million candidates taking the national civil servant exam.

More surprisingly, these posts are in respectable sectors such as civil aviation, Customs and tax bureaus.

The Internet is full of comments on this weird phenomenon. Though not all the netizens' comments are reasonable, some of them raise pertinent questions.

Many netizens have said that the non-transparent nature of the exam is responsible for the phenomenon. The close-door system of checking candidates answer papers, which does not allow review or further scrutiny, is causing public concern and undermining the credibility of the exam.

Making the entire civil servant examination process transparent will not only help candidates and remove people's doubts, but also restore the authorities' credibility.

(China Daily 12/08/2010 page9)