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The Department of Justice will conduct a recruitment exercise for Government Counsel (GC) around October.
"Similar to the recruitment exercise in 2007, all GC applicants will need to obtain a 'Level 2' result in the Use of English (UE) paper and a 'Level 1' result in the Use of Chinese (UC) paper in the Common Recruitment Examination (CRE)," a spokesman for the department said.
In this connection, grade "C" or above in Use of English of the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE) is accepted as equivalent to "Level 2" in the UE paper of the CRE; grade "D" or above in Chinese Language and Culture or Chinese Language and Literature of the HKALE is accepted as equivalent to "Level 1" in the UC paper of the CRE.
"In exceptional circumstances, candidates may be exempted from strict compliance with the Chinese language requirement," the spokesman said.
He added that candidates applying for the GC post in the coming exercise would also need to have taken a Basic Law Test (BLT). While BLT result would not affect a candidate's eligibility for job application and recruitment interview, it would be one of the considerations to assess the suitability of a candidate.
The next CRE and BLT will be held on October 4, 2008. Candidates without the BLT result and/or the requisite results in CRE, or equivalent, can make an application between August 2-15 to sit the CRE and BLT before they apply for the GC post which will be advertised later in the year.
Candidates (including monolingual candidates) interested in applying for the GC post are reminded to apply for the coming CRE and BLT in August.
More information on the CRE and BLT and on-line application facilities will be available on the homepage of the Civil Service Bureau (under the "Recruitment" section) at www.csb.gov.hk from August 2, 2008.
Ends/Friday, August 1, 2008
Issued at HKT 15:23
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