The UPSC controversy - Newskarnataka
Are the protests justified?
Protests from civil services aspirants have erupted demanding the scrapping of Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT). The reason for the demand? According to the protestors, it is discriminatory against Humanities and Hindi Medium students. The Centre, on Tuesday, July 22, asked the UPSC to postpone the preliminary examination slated for August 24, asking the Panel already set up to study the pattern to submit their report within a week. In the meanwhile the UPSC has started issuing admit cards, creating further unrest.
What is this controversy all about?
In 2011, the UPSC after much consultation, changed the pattern of the civil services preliminary exam slightly. Upto 2010, the exam used to have two papers — one on general studies and one on an optional subject where aspirants could choose one of 23 listed subjects. In 2011, the UPSC decided to replace the optional subject paper with a paper that tests the aspirants’ aptitude at a very basic level.
The syllabus for this paper, comprises comprehension, interpersonal skills including communication skills, logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision making and problem solving, general mental ability, basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc — Class X level), data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency, etc — Class X level) and English language comprehension skills (Class X level).
Why are the protestors opposing this aptitude test?
The protests by aspirants center around their allegation that the exam is heavily tilted in favor of those from the Science or, more specifically, Engineering background and is discriminatory against students from Humanities, particularly those who have studied in Hindi-medium.
They feel the Quantitave aptitude tilt - logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision making and problem solving, basic numeracy, data interpretation etc favor Science and Engineering students. They feel that Maths related questions put students from Humanities at a disadvantage according to them. Communication skills are restricted to English language comprehension skills and are therefore discriminatory to Hindi-medium students.
According to the agitated aspirants the number of Humanities students clearing the preliminary exam has fallen drastically after the changes were introduced.
What is the government doing about this issue?
MPs have been continuously raising the matter in the house in the ongoing Parliament session. On Tuesday 22nd July, Union Minister Jitendra Singh told the house, that it asked the UPSC and th
e committee constituted to look into the matter to submit its report within a week and would write to the UPSC to postpone the exam, pending the recommendations of the committee. In the meanwhile however the UPSC has started issuing hall tickets and this has enraged the protesting aspirants no end. The protests have now turned violent. Certainly the issue could have been handled with more finesse.
Is the CSAT really discriminatory as the aspirants claim?
The discrimination bugle is being sounded on the basis of the quantitative nature of the exam and the language of the comprehension test. They must understand that the civil services are all about instant application of intelligence and creativity in solving problems, something not tested in the past.
In its previous avatar, the selection was merely a test of an aspirant’s reading and retention ability A consistent effort and an excellent memory rendered success in the civil services exam while those who lacked this memory capacity were at a great disadvantage.
This has not changed with the new format. However an additional element has been injected and partially removes that disadvantage for those whose memory ability is not as strong as their intellectual capacity – a test of Quantitative and Qualitative aptitude. This is tested for almost all post graduate and engineering courses, even those in the Humanities. These tests are supposed to test intelligence and creative problem solving abilities that are very essential for the civil services.
There should be no cribbing about it, as aspirants only need to be adept at a Class X level, which is very very basic and is a level at which even Humanities students must be proficient. Yet it is being opposed.
Secondly, Civil Service aspirants come from all the states, not just Hindi speaking states. All states have their own medium of instruction and many students study in their state’s official language even at the college level. The common language therefore is English. It is also language of International diplomacy and administration. Since the civil services aspirants are from all over the country, the options cannot be restricted to Hindi and English and therefore having it exclusively in English would not in my opinion be discriminatory.
What is this controversy all about?
In 2011, the UPSC after much consultation, changed the pattern of the civil services preliminary exam slightly. Upto 2010, the exam used to have two papers — one on general studies and one on an optional subject where aspirants could choose one of 23 listed subjects. In 2011, the UPSC decided to replace the optional subject paper with a paper that tests the aspirants’ aptitude at a very basic level.
The syllabus for this paper, comprises comprehension, interpersonal skills including communication skills, logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision making and problem solving, general mental ability, basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc — Class X level), data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency, etc — Class X level) and English language comprehension skills (Class X level).
Why are the protestors opposing this aptitude test?
The protests by aspirants center around their allegation that the exam is heavily tilted in favor of those from the Science or, more specifically, Engineering background and is discriminatory against students from Humanities, particularly those who have studied in Hindi-medium.
They feel the Quantitave aptitude tilt - logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision making and problem solving, basic numeracy, data interpretation etc favor Science and Engineering students. They feel that Maths related questions put students from Humanities at a disadvantage according to them. Communication skills are restricted to English language comprehension skills and are therefore discriminatory to Hindi-medium students.
According to the agitated aspirants the number of Humanities students clearing the preliminary exam has fallen drastically after the changes were introduced.
What is the government doing about this issue?
MPs have been continuously raising the matter in the house in the ongoing Parliament session. On Tuesday 22nd July, Union Minister Jitendra Singh told the house, that it asked the UPSC and th
e committee constituted to look into the matter to submit its report within a week and would write to the UPSC to postpone the exam, pending the recommendations of the committee. In the meanwhile however the UPSC has started issuing hall tickets and this has enraged the protesting aspirants no end. The protests have now turned violent. Certainly the issue could have been handled with more finesse.Is the CSAT really discriminatory as the aspirants claim?
The discrimination bugle is being sounded on the basis of the quantitative nature of the exam and the language of the comprehension test. They must understand that the civil services are all about instant application of intelligence and creativity in solving problems, something not tested in the past.
In its previous avatar, the selection was merely a test of an aspirant’s reading and retention ability A consistent effort and an excellent memory rendered success in the civil services exam while those who lacked this memory capacity were at a great disadvantage.
This has not changed with the new format. However an additional element has been injected and partially removes that disadvantage for those whose memory ability is not as strong as their intellectual capacity – a test of Quantitative and Qualitative aptitude. This is tested for almost all post graduate and engineering courses, even those in the Humanities. These tests are supposed to test intelligence and creative problem solving abilities that are very essential for the civil services.
There should be no cribbing about it, as aspirants only need to be adept at a Class X level, which is very very basic and is a level at which even Humanities students must be proficient. Yet it is being opposed.
Secondly, Civil Service aspirants come from all the states, not just Hindi speaking states. All states have their own medium of instruction and many students study in their state’s official language even at the college level. The common language therefore is English. It is also language of International diplomacy and administration. Since the civil services aspirants are from all over the country, the options cannot be restricted to Hindi and English and therefore having it exclusively in English would not in my opinion be discriminatory.Are the protests justified?
The demand to scrap the CSAT is certainly not justified. The Civil Services selection methodology required a thorough overhaul and the introduction of the CSAT is just the first step. The reason it requires a thorough overhaul is that it does not produce the quality of civil servants be it the IFS, the IAS or the IPS that India needs in the modern age. For one, it adopts a decremental strategy of selection for the various services and this must be replaced with separate custom made selection methodologies for each of the services that it seeks to fill. Also apart from intelligence and creativity, it must test for integrity (the ability to stand up to pressure for the sake of one’s values), something that the bureaucracy is in dire need of. Let’s hope that this one step forward will become a giant leap in the near future and not fall two steps backward.
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