No more passes for the incompetent and dangerous

One of the curses we have inherited from the 1980s is an aversion, a horror even, of the very notion of evaluation. There is no part of the country's public sector that does not suffer from this ailment, not even the ones that are most vital. Ask an expert why some unjustified accident occurred in the navy and they'll say that the ship had been captained by someone who should never have risen to the rank, who threw the crew into disarray and made such a mess that his successor was unable to put things to rights, leading to the accident. When you ask why he was allowed to rise through the ranks, the answer will be that the system of promotions relies on positive reviews from junior officers, meaning that everyone gets glowing marks.

Such stories are everywhere. Even the justice system is vehemently resisting the notion of evaluations, even though the criteria for what makes a...