MHA has found that in many countries, rank elevation is implemented based on civil servants’ work results, achievements, and is allocated to agency heads, assessed via performance evaluations.

MHA noted issues with Vietnam’s current rank elevation exams.

First, exams don’t truly assess candidates’ abilities. General knowledge tests require rote learning, which doesn’t truly reflect candidates’ knowledge and competence.

Second, some civil servants study ethnic minority languages to avoid foreign language tests, though their roles don’t require foreign language and ethnic minority language skills.

Third, the competition and failure rates of rank elevation exams are low. Meanwhile, it is costly to organize such exams, while candidates have to present informatics skill, foreign language, ethnic minority language, and refresher training course certificates, which take a lot of time and may spark corruption.

Moreover, civil servants attend rank elevation exams for salary increases, not to meet higher demands.

The ministry believes that elevating ranks based on "outstanding public service achievements during work, recognized by authorities" is misaligned with regulations on cadre rotation, leadership roles, and job position transitions.

Rotation, job transitions, or reassignments affect rank changes (e.g., from specialist to inspector, enforcer, or investigator), yet prior achievements, though equivalent, aren’t counted as from the current rank.

Thus, the ministry suggests abolishing rank elevation exams, replacing them with assessments based on work ability and past rank achievements.

Professional title promotion

Other countries implement promotions to reflect the career development path of civil servants.

New Zealand only applies promotion for lecturers to senior lecturers, associate professors to professors, and decentralizing to educational institutions to establish their own review boards based on standards, norms and staff quotas.

In Vietnam, some civil servants pursue advanced degrees and certificates just to meet title standards. Promotion mainly addresses salary hikes, not reflecting promotion’s essence.

At schools, there is no difference in teaching quality between class-3 and class-2 teachers. In healthcare, Category 3 and Category 2 doctors have similar competence.

Thus, the ministry proposes Vietnam consider salary increases for civil servants and abolish professional title promotion reviews.

Reforming appointment processes

Except for China, many countries use merit-based promotion systems, assessing performance and competence without cadre planning.

Instead, they apply simple promotion processes, delegating agency heads to propose or decide appointments.

For vacant leadership roles, HR prepares a ranked list of potential civil servants based on achievements and competence for the head’s review and appointment.

The Ministry sees this as a model Vietnam could adopt to reform cadre appointments, attracting, utilizing, and rewarding talent, improving leadership quality, and simplifying appointments for department, provincial, and unit-level leaders.

Currently, young talented civil servants don’t have many opportunities to get promotion just because they are not ‘major specialists’. Meanwhile, major specialists must have at least 9 years of service. Also, to get rank promotions, they have to be Party members and pre-planned. They may also face challenges in confidence votes despite dynamism.

In the latest draft amended Law on Cadres and Civil Servants, Articles 42-46 eliminate all the provisions on civil service ranking to align with the job-position-based management mechanism.

Instead, the draft introduces ‘assigning civil servants by job position’.

The civil service job position system is tiered based on role standards, titles, job descriptions, and agency structures within the Party, State, Vietnam Fatherland Front, and socio-political organizations at central, provincial, and commune levels.

Changing a civil servant’s job position to a higher tier requires exams or reviews, decided by the managing agency. Moves to equivalent or lower tiers are decided by the managing or employing agency, per delegation.

The ministry proposes abolishing civil service ranks, replacing them with job positions.

Changes to a civil servant’s job position to an equivalent or lower-tier role are decided by the managing agency or the employing agency, per delegated authority.

When civil servants switch job positions, they receive the salary and benefits tied to the new position. Specific details will be regulated by the Government.

Article 19 of the draft amended law also stipulates: The managing agency may sign labor contracts with talented individuals, experts, or scientists to perform specific professional or technical tasks, meeting the agency, organization, or unit’s needs.

The draft amended Law on Cadres and Civil Servants is slated for submission to the National Assembly at its May session.