Reports

Most party officials spend less time in reading than ordinary people

(People's Daily Online)
Updated: 2010-05-11 16:48

Recently, a survey on the current reading status of the party and government officials showed the average reading time of most of them was less than that of ordinary people.

The data of the survey could illustrate the problem. For the question "Do you like reading", 75.5 percent of the respondents, who were party and government officials, chose "like" or "like very much", 18.3 percent chose "generally", and only 2.8 percent of the respondents chose "do not like" or "do not like badly". These figures showed although there are more and more channels of acquiring knowledge in this quickly developing world, most of the party and government officials like reading subjectively.

The survey showed 33.4 percent of the respondents spent 0-3 hours reading per week and 27.6 percent 3-6 hours per week. In other words, the reading time of more than 60 percent of officials was less than 6 hours. Although there is no agreement on the appropriate reading time per week, this figure is less than the average reading time of the Chinese people - 8.1 hours- which is the result of a latest survey. As an important reading group, most of the party and government officials spend less time reading than ordinary people. This phenomenon is worth considering.

Nevertheless, it is also an indisputable fact that the officials' reading time is occupied by their busy work. Currently, "too busy with work to have time for reading" has become their biggest trouble, ranking the first among all the reasons with 40 percent of the respondents choosing it. The No.2 reason is "too much socializing took up the time for reading", with 22.2 percent of respondents choosing it. "Being unable to spare time for reading" is the most important reason.

A professor of the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC said, in all these years, almost all corrupt officials would mention in the final reflection that they neglected study. This was not completely an excuse. In fact, lacking the habit of in-depth research into problems in daily work and lacking study are the common feature of almost all corrupt officials.

The experts emphasized the positive effect of mandatory reading could not be neglected, but an effective design in the official selection mechanism would better urge them to read. In recent years, China has gradually strengthened the open selection of officials, broken the previous undesirable rules including promoting by seniority, and provided a platform for outstanding talents to come to stage. If we select officials through open examinations, the officials will definitely enrich their knowledge and ability by reading, which is good for the forming of a favorable atmosphere of study.