On December 7, the Government Inspectorate announced the Conclusion of the Inspection on the responsibility for performing public duties of cadres, civil servants, and public employees in handling administrative procedures (AP) and providing public services (PS) to people and businesses at the Ministry of Education and Training (from June 15, 2021 to November 30, 2023).
Slow, incomplete, and inconsiderate implementation
In this Conclusion, the Government Inspectorate determined that the application of technology, digitalization of data, public services, and settlement of administrative procedures in the electronic environment according to the Government's Decrees and Resolutions, projects, and directions of the Prime Minister at the Ministry of Education and Training was slow, incomplete, and not serious: No administrative procedures have been deployed as online public services at levels 3 and 4 according to Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP or full-process online public services according to Decree No. 42/2022/ND-CP of the Government;
Online settlement is not yet substantial (people and businesses declare online but mainly still receive and process paper documents); connection with the National Public Service Portal does not meet requirements; there is no connection, integration and sharing between data, software, and administrative procedure settlement systems; there is no connection with the National Population Database and the Electronic Authentication and Identification System according to regulations...
The organization and operation of the one-stop shop (BPMC) and the implementation of the one-stop shop and inter-connected one-stop shop mechanisms at the Ministry of Education and Training are still inadequate, limited and weak: The head of the BPMC does not fully publicize the list of administrative procedures at the BPMC; does not report or propose to the Ministry's leaders to handle cases of overdue records; there are administrative procedures organized to receive and return results at the wrong location; assigned civil servants do not work and perform regular tasks at the BPMC; the arrangement of the BPMC's headquarters and equipment is not in accordance with regulations; does not apologize to people and businesses when the deadline for handling administrative procedures occurs...
Causing public outrage
For the 10 inspected administrative procedures, the Government Inspectorate also made notable conclusions such as:
The Ministry of Education and Training reported that the results of handling administrative procedures did not reflect the true situation and were inaccurate: The Ministry periodically reported to the Government that the results of handling administrative procedures in 2021 and 2022 were 100% on time, while the inspection of 10 administrative procedures had 419 overdue records, accounting for 2.27% of the resolved records, of which 03 administrative procedures had an overdue record rate of over 50%. The handling of records was delayed and exceeded the time limit for handling administrative procedures according to regulations.
The request for people and businesses to supplement and complete documents outside the list of prescribed documents (34 documents) caused frustration and inconvenience for people and businesses, requiring them to travel, explain, and supplement many times, potentially posing a risk of harassment; the form of request was not in accordance with regulations (332 documents); the time required to supplement documents exceeded the prescribed time (03 documents); the request for supplementary documents after the deadline for submitting application documents had expired (39 documents)...
Management and settlement of administrative procedures "Approval of joint organization of foreign language proficiency exams" before Circular No. 11/2022/TT - BGDDT took effect (August 2018 to September 2022): The Ministry of Education and Training has loosened management, allowing violations in joint organization of foreign language proficiency exams (many units jointly organized exams to grant certificates without permission from the Ministry of Education and Training according to the provisions of Decree No. 86/2018/ND-CP of the Government) to continue for a long time, but there have not been timely measures to prevent, rectify, and handle them, causing public outrage.
Based on the results of the Inspection, the Government Inspector General has recommended reviewing the responsibility of the head and the responsibility of the leaders of the Ministry of Education and Training directly related to the shortcomings, defects, and violations in state management and handling of administrative procedures and public services for people and businesses.
