Bangladesh Civil Service:

Recruitment, Training,
Compensation, Career
Advancement
MMH3

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Bangladesh Civil Service
Introduction
Bangladesh Civil Service has, over the years, undergone substantial
structural and functional changes.
One change has been to minimize cadre differences and elitism - a
characteristic introduced during the British colonial period and later
during the Pakistani rule.
With the abolition of elitism from the civil service, it has turned the civil
service into mediocrity marred by rigidity, inefficiency and being slow.
The norms and standards of the civil service have greatly been eroded
over the years due to factionalism and politicization of the civil service.
It led to the negative consequences on their professional neutrality and
competence with a gradual decline in citizens’ trust.

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 Civil Service
Civil service’ represents the officials appointed for
discharging specific functions of the government.
The term ‘civil service’ is therefore construed as the civil
bureaucracy running the entire administrative system of the
country.
The term was first coined by the East India Company in
British India to separate it from its officials belonging to the
military wing. During that time, civil servants were assigned
with the task of trading activities and management of local
administration in British acquired territory.

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 In its present context also, military personnel are
not considered part of the civil service. Bangladesh
Civil Service (BCS) includes officials serving in the
various functional cadres recruited by Public
Service Commission through an open competitive
examination and does not include officials
recruited in parastatals, corporations, autonomous
or semi-autonomous bodies

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 “The key features of an effective civil service is that it
has to be merit based, neutral, well-structured
and,right sized and well paid, accountable,
professional and relatively corruption free, relatively
autonomous, responsive and representative, well
trained, performance oriented and relatively open civil
service” (The United National General Assembly
Resolution 50/225).

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 These tenets of civil service stands universally true, there
are deviations from universal criteria whether civil
service should remain apolitical?
or maintain a combination of both merit and quota
principle for selection, and guarantee impartiality in the
conduct and dispensation of public services.
Some common features of civil service are that it is a
career system with tenured job, selection is based on
competitive and merit basis, it works in subordination of
the political actors and its permanency is not affected
with the changes in the regime.
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 Bangladesh civil service (BCS) shares a legacy of the
past civil service from the British colonial rule since
partition in 1947 with India, and independence from
Pakistan in 1971.
BCS has been shaped by the bureaucratic culture and
practices inherited from the Civil Services of Pakistan
in the one hand, and later by its impetus to the ideals
of liberation war and pro-people orientation and
public responsiveness on the other.

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Composition
The civil service of Bangladesh adopted a unified cadre
based on the recommendation of the Administrative
Services Reorganization Committee in 1973. The services
were further reorganized with the Senior Service Pool
order of 1979 and establishment of 28 cadres under
Bangladesh Civil Services Reorganization Order 1980.
As per the Bangladesh Civil Service(Age, Qualifications
and Direct Recruitment) Rules of 2014, the number of
BCS cadres is now classified in to 27 cadres as per
schedule 1 of the Rules.

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Recruitment and selection of civil servants:
Public Service Commission:
The Public service Commission (PSC) a constitutional
body of the state mandated for conducting
recruitment and selection of candidates for public
service, recommend for promotion, regularization of
services, formulate recruitment rules and suggest
opinion against discipline cases of the civil servants.

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Composition of the PSC
The PSC is constituted with a Chairman and 15
members of whom at least half of its members come
from people who served public service at least for 20
years within the territory of Bangladesh.
 The maximum term is 5 years or serves until attaining
the age of 65 years whichever comes early.
The Chairman and Members enjoy independence and
can only be removed from service in a manner the
Judges of Supreme Court are proceeded

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Recruitment
Over the years the recruitment process of BCS has
become digitized. Submission of application made to
PSC is done on-line basis.
 A total of 1300 marks are allocated which is
distributed in the following manner: preliminary test
200, written test 900 and viva 200.
Three different groups of candidates are classified:
general cadre, professional and technical cadre and
BCS(General Education) cadre.

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Examination
Written examinations as based on subjects such as
Bangla language and literature, English language and
literature, Bangladesh Affairs, International Affairs,
Geography, Environment and Disaster Management,
General Science, Computer and Information
Technology, Quantitative skill, Cognitive skills, Ethics,
morality and governance.
For technical and professional cadres, candidates take
a relevant subjects.

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 The duration of the preliminary test which is based on
multiple choice questions is 2 hours where candidates
are required to attempt 200 questions.
 Negative marking of 0.50 for each wrong answer is
enforced. The duration of written test examination is 4
hours

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Age limit of candidates
The lower age limit for entering civil service for all
cadres has been fixed at 21 and maximum 30 years.
 For freedom fighters and their children, for physically
challenged, BCS health and education the lower limit
is 21 and maximum 32 years.

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Applicants
In 2005 the total number of candidates was 1,38,000
whereas in 2013 the number of candidates appeared
BCS was 2,21,500.
Therefore, the number of candidates for entering the
civil service has increased over the years.
In the 24th BCS preliminary test, it is reported that a
total of 1,20,311 candidates took part in the competitive
examination for 4,540 vacant positions. Therefore, for
1 vacant position, approximately 26 candidates had
been competing.

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Joining the BCS
After a candidate being selected and recommended for
appointment, a candidate is offered the job and
conditions of service.
On acceptance, an officer is appointed as a probationer
for a term of two years.
 Within the probation the officer undergoes foundation
and departmental training and required to pass
departmental examinations.
An officer after successful completion of the probation
period is confirmed to the service. During the probation
period and also in mid career, a civil servant is given
various on the job training.
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Placement and transfer
A feature of the BCS is job rotation of civil servants
and their transferability. Therefore, civil servants
undergo regular horizontal and vertical mobility
through transfer and promotion from one position to
another.
As a general guideline, an incumbent serves a
particular workstation for three years.

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Civil service ethics and code of
conduct
The Government Servants (Conduct) Rules of 1979
which is the only regulatory framework to conform to
proper conduct of the civil servants.
The civil servants discipline is ensured with the
enforcement of Civil Servants (Discipline and Appeal)
Rules of 1985.For deviant behavior or misconduct
provisions are laid out to proceed against a civil
servant.

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Training
There is a national training policy which recognizes the training
as a continuous process augmenting human capital.
Currently there is an apex training academy i.e. Bangladesh
Public Administration Training Center (BPATC) for training of
all cadres, and nineteen training academies for seventeen cadres.
Two main types of training are imparted to the civil servants:
post-entry training and in-service training. The post-entry
training includes common training to all the cadre officials,
training in specialized institutes for the cadre and on-the job
training.
Foundation training is a basic mandatory training given to the
fresh entrants to the civil service without which confirmation to
the service will not be possible.
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Compensation and retirement benefits
Bangladesh does not have a performance based pay system
rather pay is governed by the pay scale under 20 grades for
public services.
According to the last national pays scale, the salary of the
Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary and Senior Secretary
has been fixed at 86000 and 82000 respectively.
A civil servant is entitled to retirement benefits on his or her
retirement from public service. The retirement benefits are
dependent on the basis of length of qualifying service
rendered and amount of last pay drawn. The retiring age of the
civil servants has been raised to 59 years from 57 years in 2013.

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 On attaining 59 years of age an officer goes on PRL (Post retirement
leave) subject to leave admissibility of two years, an officer is
entitled to have 12 months leave on payment of basic salary and
permissible allowances, and encashment of 18 months leave.
Pensions are classified into invalid pension, superannuation
pension, retiring pension, optional pension and family pension.
Superannuation pension is given when a civil servant retires at the
age of 59 years. Retiring pension is given when a civil servant is
retired on completion of 25 years of service and when the
government retires him in public interest. Optional pension is given
to a civil servant when he retires from service after attaining 25 years
of service. Family pension is given to the spouse of a pensioner on
his or her death.

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