Gaps in knowledge of would-be civil servants
One in five candidates who sat the most recent round of exams to gain a public service job did not know how many parties are represented in Parliament, according to statistics made public yesterday. Almost half of the 103,530 failed to get the 50 percent pass mark on a general knowledge test that would allow them to be considered for a position in the public sector despite the fact that seven in 10 had undergraduate diplomas. Among the results announced by the Civil Service Staffing Council (ASEP) was that 43 percent of candidates did not know the purpose of the Athens Exchange. The ignorance of many candidates was not confined to domestic affairs, as 57 percent of those who sat the test did not know how many countries are now members of the European Union. Only 134 candidates (0.1 percent) scored more than 95 percent in the exam.
