Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Why protests by civil service aspirants are unjustified

Over the last few days a number of civil service aspirants have been protesting in New Delhi demanding alteration in the pattern of the preliminary examination of the civil service examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). They have two main demands with regard to the second paper of the civil service preliminary examination. One, to make easier the questions that include quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning, data sufficiency, etc. Second, to do away with the English comprehension passage. Both these demands are unjustified.
The questions of aptitude, reasoning, etc. are of a very basic level. Even the banking examination conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel and Selection (IBPS) has questions under these topics at a more difficult level. The state Public Service Commission (PSC) examinations have questions from these topics with the same difficulty level. The Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission into India’s top B-schools has questions under these topics at the highest difficulty level. Despite the Indian Civil Service examination being one of the most difficult civil service examinations in the world, the questions under these topics are much easier in this examination. Such questions are asked in every competitive examination. A demand to reduce the difficulty level of such questions should never have arisen in the first place. A candidate is expected to answer the questions that are asked. Certainly, the question setters know best the level that is expected of the candidates who are aspiring to become IAS, IPS, and other All India Service officers. 

An argument put forward by those protesting is that those candidates who belong to the Science and engineering backgrounds are at an advantageous position when such questions are asked. The argument is true but those putting forth this argument should also not forget that these students had graduated having obtained less time to prepare for the civil service examination, if at all they had started preparing during college days, than arts and commerce graduates.

The second demand that the questions of English comprehension passage be done away with is fallacious. It is so because the argument of the protesting candidates is based on the premise that the candidates from English medium schools are at an advantage vis-a-vis those from the non-English backgrounds. The questions asked in English language under this category are of class X level. Those civil service aspirants protesting demanding removal of questions of such level is ridiculous, to say the least. A person with a basic understanding of English language can answer the questions with ease. Comparing with the questions asked in the IBPS bank examination and the CAT, the questions asked in the civil service examination is much easier. Isn’t the basic knowledge of English a prerequisite for a candidate aspiring to become an All India Service officer? To those candidates who say that they are not comfortable with English of this basic level, the question to be asked is, if not now, when are they going to learn the language? How would they work in different states and in the centre without basic knowledge of English? Even if they feel that the questions in this section are difficult and amounts to a bias against the candidates from non-English backgrounds, it is to be noted that the number of questions in this section are at most 10 out of a total of 80 questions, a mere 12.5%! In the light of these points, are these protests justified?
The irony is that when some days back when there were rumours of Hindi being given more importance than other languages, most protested, and favoured continuance of the usage of English, the very language whose use is now being protested.
Another fact that needs to be highlighted is the continuous increase in the cut off marks in the preliminary examination. Whilst in 2012 the cut off was somewhere near 210, in 2013 it was 245. A rise in this magnitude was hitherto unseen. The rise in cut off mark clearly indicates that the candidates are scoring better. This by itself shows that the protests are unjustified.
Civil service examination is a competitive examination. Elimination is the main aim at every level of this examination. From over 4 lakh applicants only close to 1200 candidates are selected. The competition keeps increasing every year. Those willing to appear for the examination should be willing to rise to the expected level of the UPSC than asking them to lower the standard. Pressure groups and political parties backing the current protests should understand that they are playing with fire. By backing such protests and trying to enforce on the UPSC their demands, they are setting a wrong precedent. If this goes on, in future we may have to witness candidates appearing for the IBPS bank examination, CAT, the examinations of Charted Accountancy and the Company Secretary ship, GATE, etc. protesting demanding to set the question papers according to their demands. May better sense prevail!