About the Justice Building + Education in District 12
I don’t have time for a throughly detailed analysis thread, but since D12 is the focus of most of what I write, I’ve been thinking a lot about what would realistically be included in its school curriculum. Also, I’m literally currently working on a WIP where I mentioned an exam in passing and immediately fell down another rabbit hole about the background and every possible detail of this supposed exam. I'll probably make another post about all this, but more detailed, these are just some ramblings.
Working in the Justice Building
I think in District 12, people don’t just work in the mines or shops; they also fill roles in administration and infrastructure. Peacekeepers function as law enforcement, but regular office work would most likely still be handled by district residents.
Part of why I think this is because the merchant sector population is honestly too large for any other explanation to fully make sense to me. They can’t all have shops. Unfortunately, District 12 is not Busytown...
Someone has to manage coal imports and exports, logistics, transportation, records, scheduling, and all the bureaucratic work attached to keeping the district operational. While Peacekeepers might oversee things, they’re nowhere enough in numbers to handle every aspect of district management themselves. The Mayor is probably the final stop before anything gets approved by the Capitol and acts as an overseer for most district operations (funnily enough the latest mayor was an Undersee)
Most of that burden would still fall on the local population. Especially in a smaller district, where there's got to be probably only a couple hundred Peacekeepers stationed at most, the system would need district residents to keep functioning day to day
District 12’s population is around 8k in the books, 10k in the movies, so let’s say roughly 9k. If about 85–90% live in the Seam, that leaves only 10–15% so around 1,000 people in the merchant sector.
This is where the idea of civil service entrance examinations comes to mind (possibly because I’m studying for one myself right now… unfortunately) I can easily imagine a system where such exams exist for administrative positions, and the exam fee alone would already put them out of reach for many Seam residents. Even if Seam students manage to stay focused on their studies while working--which we already know is difficult--the constant responsibilities would leave very little time or energy to study (there's also knowing that there is no point in trying to get a good score, I'll get to that in a second)
They’re often built around memorizing information with overly complicated jargon, things you'd only forget most of right after the test but you still have to study and memorize all of it anyway. I imagine it would work similarly to a civil service exam for a large portion of positions, with additional specialized sections depending on the field so import/export, the coal industry, logistics, administration, school teachers, and maybe a more general version for routine office workers for the payroll office, tesserae office etc.
So these kinds of exams usually aren’t even about intelligence anyway. It wouldn’t really matter if you’re naturally smart; what matters is being book smart in a test-oriented way.
Even if someone succeeds academically, there’s always… *drumrolls* corruption!!!!
You might score incredibly well, but interviews could still favor nepotism over merit. That kind of system feels very plausible in Panem (and unfortunately, I’m very familiar with systems like that myself :') lived in it, living in it, will probably die in it)
You can get the highest grades possible, but at the end of the day, the people conducting interviews and evaluations are still going to prioritize their own connections and favors. So if a merchant retires, dies, or leaves an opening in the Justice Building, it would make sense for people to want to keep that position within the family. partly because that job means stable income for the household, and partly because of familiarity and trus, the very common tendency of people hiring those they already know, or someone putting in a good word for a candidate. Like “a friend of the family friend’s family member is taking the exam this year, so please keep an eye out for that examinee” which literally means "please hire them" and and so on..
That kind of thing is very common where I’m from, so it naturally shapes the way I imagine Panem functioning too.
So, as someone from the Seam, even if you manage to gather your hard-earned money throughout the year and set it aside for the exam participation fee, there’s still a high chance you’ll get eliminated in the interviews in favor of a merchant family’s relative or family friend.
At that point why even take the exam and lose a year’s worth of savings that could’ve gone toward food and living instead?
Katniss says in school they’re taught basic math and similar subjects, and most other classes seem to circle back to coal.
But I think it’s more realistic that there would be a stronger education--at least in STEM fields rather than social sciences or humanities. The districts are largely self-sustaining in terms of personnel of...everything except Peacekeepers.
We know some kind of specialized education exists in at least some districts during Katniss’ time.
Before fleeing to D13, while was in D10, Dalton worked on a beef ranch and worked with frozen cow embryos to maintain genetic diversity in the herd, which implies the existence of advanced technical training from the district itself (he mentions this in Mockingjay while explaining why D13 needs refugees after their population bottleneck)
You’d think an engineer could only really come out of D3 or D5, but here’s one in D10.
So who’s to say there aren’t plant biologists or agricultural scientists raised and stationed in D7, D9 or D11 for the same reason--maintaining crop health and genetic diversity? Or fisheries scientists in D4? Realistically it would probably cost less to educate and use local specialists than constantly import scientists from more privileged districts or even the Capitol. And again, Dalton's from D10.
I could also imagine districts like 2 and 6, with larger populations, or districts like 8 and 11, with stronger rebellious tendencies and track record, being much more Peacekeeper heavy and having more Capitol assigned personnel working in Justice Buildings. That would probably reallocate personnel away from smaller and 'lesser' districts like 12. At least that’s how I imagine the system working.
Overall, I feel like district education is probably broader and more specialized than what we directly see through Katniss’ perspective--especially in areas necessary to keep each district functioning independently.
I’ll probably think more about District 12’s curriculum later. Much later. But yeah, these were just some thoughts I had and wanted to throw out there before going back to doing my thing (writing working studying please help) Goodbye!!
