Is it really that good? Look at the typical scholar's career.
Its already mapped out the minute he puts pen to paper. He'll
supposed to fast-tracked up the ladder, usually from a middle level
position, supposedly for him to gain experience. His term there is
usually more or less fixed, until the next step up and so on until
he arrives where it's been planned for him.
That sounds fine and good in theory, but then the road to hell is
paved with good intentions
He is assured of that promotion even if his performance is average
or mediocre, barring major f***ups. So what happens is most of them
taken the safest, and most risk averse path. Hey, if I don't do
anything risky, nothing will go wrong right? No controversial (or
even remotely controversial) decisions are made, nothing of
substance gets done, major decisions get buried under red tape
until scholar boy moves up the ladder and hands over the decision
making reponsibility to the next guy, who more often than not, is
another scholar and the process repeats itself over and over
again.
An overblown scenario? Not from what I have seen first hand myself.
While I was in NS years ago, we got wind of a new system "to be
implemented in the next year". When I left for my studies 1 1/2
years later, it had yet to be implemented, and when I came back 4
years later to serve my balance, the "new system" had been in place
all of 2 weeks(No kidding). The system was riddled with kinks (not
SAF's fault, every new system is like that) but what was
particularly galling was the "scholars" in position to make
decisions to iron out the kinks refused point blank, preferring to
let the onus fall on another scholar who was obviouslly not too
keen on making THAT decision and passed it around like a hot
potato. With the result that the guys down the pecking order
suffered.
Whats new?
