Parliamentary committee to approve bill on national diplomacy academy

SEOUL, June 21 (Yonhap) -- Parliament's foreign affairs committee plans to approve a bill Tuesday that calls for scrapping the decades-old foreign service exam and establishing a state agency charged with recruiting and training career diplomats, a lawmaker said.
The proposed establishment of the so-called national diplomacy academy came in response to criticism that the current foreign service exam relies heavily on rote-centered written tests and is too outdated and unfit for discovering talented diplomats.
"We plan to review the national diplomacy academy bill at a plenary meeting in the afternoon," said Rep. Yoo Ki-june of the ruling Grand National Party, a ruling party leader on the foreign affairs committee. "We will act on it after discussions."
The new hiring system calls for placing final candidates under a one-year training period at the envisioned academy to see if they have the qualifications necessary to become diplomats. Those who complete the training satisfactorily will be hired as foreign service officials.
The government plans to open the academy in the first half of next year with the institution to begin accepting students in 2013 and producing career diplomats in 2014. But the timeline could be delayed by one year due to the time required for preparations to introduce the new system.