New Delhi: The controversy over Union Public Service Commission Civil Service Preliminary Examination, which is the first step towards joining the top echelons of bureaucracy, has taken an ugly turn with the issue being diverted to the linguistic fight. The structure of the CSAT (Civil Service Aptitude Test) is the main bone of contention, which aspirants feel is biased towards technical and management students and it should be scrapped.
The structure of the exam was changed in 2011 and since then the aspirants from Humanities and Hindi belt are protesting against it. The change has adversely affected the number of aspirants cracking the exam from Humanities stream and Hindi belt as the numbers have gone down drastically.
The prelims examination is divided into two sections - General Studies and CSAT and both the papers are of 200 marks. The General Studies consists of 100 questions and the CSAT of 80 questions. But the marks required to qualify General Studies is 30 whereas for CSAT it is 70.
The CSAT comprises of questions based on communication skill, logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision making and problem solving, general mental ability, basic numeracy, data interpretation and English comprehension.
Vinay Singh of Dhyeya IAS coaching institute says, "The paper is borrowed from Combined Aptitude Test which tests the managerial aptitude and not the administrative aptitude. The reasoning questions are also not based on the administrative ones.
"Rather than providing equal opportunity, the structure is made to favour a few," Singh added.
For aspirants from Humanities background, the new structure has just multiplied their problems. Monisha Meena from Rajasthan said, "The paper favours students from technical and mathematical background. The CSAT should be scrapped."
Another issue is of English to Hindi translation. In a bizzare move the English questions are translated in Hindi through Google translator which gives the literal meaning of the word. For example the word steel plant was translated into 'Loohe Ka Paudha'. Anyone who has used Google translator would vouch that its resulted are of an extremely poor quality.
The Google translator has put the aspirants from the Hindi belt in a disadvantageous situation and has also become a roadblock for them to qualify.
Anurag Chaturvedi, another aspirant, said, "The paper is a divide between rural and urban India, elitist and general class, have and have nots."
He added that an aspirant from rural area who is equally qualified, intelligent as the one from English medium, urban India has been put in a situation where s/he cannot even clear the prelims examination.
He said that there was no need to include the English comprehensions in the prelims test as there is already a 300-marks paper in the Mains paper.
On the issue of level of English, Singh said, "The test should be to check the understanding of a language and not on the linguistic level."
Chhavi Bisla from Uttar Pradesh said, "Due to the new pattern, the number of aspirants from Hindi and other regional languages have drastically reduced."
Singh concluded by saying, "The structure of the prelims is made in such a way that only urban India, elitist class are favoured and become a roadblock for others."
Even the Arun Nigavekar committee which gave the recommendations for changes in the pattern in 2013 says CSAT paper- II favors Urban English medium candidates and it is hurting rural candidates.
Candidates with poor command over general studies are qualifying because of their good command over aptitude. (Since even the best candidates in general studies, cannot score beyond a point in GS paper- given its toughness). Thus, graduates from non-science/non-engineering background are hurt in the competition.
Comments
0 comment