Seeking a level playing field

Does the new aptitude test introduced in the Civil Services prelims give a head start to English-speaking candidates and those from technical background?

July 30, 2014 02:17 am | Updated 02:17 am IST

Festering since 2011, the protests over CSAT intensified this year, primarilybecause of hopes that the new government may be more inclined to overturn a decision of its predecessor. Picture shows one such protest near Tughlak Road Police Station, in New Delhi, last week. Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma

Festering since 2011, the protests over CSAT intensified this year, primarilybecause of hopes that the new government may be more inclined to overturn a decision of its predecessor. Picture shows one such protest near Tughlak Road Police Station, in New Delhi, last week. Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma

Much has been made about India’s growing aspirational class, especially after it led the Bharatiya Janata Party to power at the Centre. Now it is a section of this aspirational class that is out on the streets, >protesting against the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT), conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). The protesters, who are civil services aspirants from rural areas, have found this compulsory paper discriminatory. They argue that the test does not offer a level-playing field to candidates who are not fluent in English.

Introduced in 2011, CSAT tests comprehension, interpersonal skills including communication skills, logical reasoning and analytical ability, decision-making and problem-solving, general mental ability, basic numeracy, data interpretation and data sufficiency besides English comprehension skills (of class X level). While the “English language comprehension skills of Class X level” is a big deal for candidates from regional language-medium schools and colleges, central to the debate is the technical nature of CSAT.

This paper replaced the objective type “optional subject’’ which, along with the test on General Studies (GS), constituted the Preliminary Examination (Prelims) for over three decades. The old Prelims module was formulated as per the recommendation of the Committee on Recruitment Policy and Selection Methods (the Kothari Committee), which gave its report in 1976.

The Preliminary Examination, as per the Kothari Committee, was to be a screening test to identify serious candidates and “broaden the base of recruitment’’ so as to rid the services of the “elitist’’ tag it had acquired since its pre-Independence incarnate as the Indian Civil Services.

> Read: UPSC issue figures in Rajya Sabha

Advantage engineers?

Till 2011, candidates could choose their “optional subject’’ for the Prelims from 23 listed subjects for this paper of 300 marks. The GS paper carried 150 marks. Under the new scheme, GS and CSAT are of 200 marks each.

Candidates from the humanities stream maintain that engineering students — particularly those from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) — have a head start in CSAT because many of its components are part of their core training for four years.

This is somewhat borne out by what Ashish Tewari, professor of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Kanpur, wrote in an in-house publication on the issue of “Administrative Services as a Career Option for IITians’’ in 2000 when more and more products of the premier education system were taking the CSE. In some years, they constituted 40 per cent of those who cleared the exam; that too in the higher ranks.

In his article, Prof. Tewari said: “The Joint Entrance Examination [for IITs] endeavours to select 18-year-olds with superior analytical abilities … The JEE is tailored to provide challenging problems, most of which require some independent thought for solution in a timely manner … At the Institute, the Under Graduate curriculum aims to hone the problem solving abilities…’’

“This is what we are pitted against,” is the refrain of those opposed to CSAT, who argue that there is no gainsaying that the components are of Class X level as these skills are seldom imparted in government schools where the stress is on learning by rote. “Earlier, aptitude was tested for 15-20 marks in the GS paper but now, an entire paper carrying half the total marks of the Prelims is on aptitude. This takes many of us out of the race at the first stage itself,” is what they say.

“CSAT is now forcing many an aspirant to take coaching for even the Prelims,” said a candidate who did not want to be named for fear of being victimised, adding, “even then we are at a disadvantage because our language skills are not so good compared to those who have had an English-medium education, and ‘think-and-speak English’ as you people put it.”

Former Union Minister Y.K. Alagh — who headed the Committee which recommended CSAT in 2001 which was later picked up by the Second Administrative Reforms Commission in 2008 — told The Hindu: “The teaching shop industry will be redundant in the new set-up once experience is there and if the CSAT is well implemented. The new system is very recent and not fully understood. The CSAT has not been fully implemented in the sense of questions which are rural-urban neutral. UPSC has to ensure that.’’

According to him, CSAT should be structured to test capabilities. “The English requirement is no longer that of an essay of the Macaulay type but working conversation knowledge of the type in a foreign language teaching programme. To say that in the 21st Century, a child who has no understanding of bazaari angrezi is an ideal candidate for the Civil Services is not just ridiculous but pernicious.”

While aspirants concede that a working knowledge of English is necessary, their contention is that the nature of questions asked in CSAT is difficult to comprehend with their limited English language skills. While all components — barring the questions on English comprehension — are available in Hindi as well, those from the Hindi-medium complain that technical terms are translated literally, making them difficult to comprehend. A case in point is “laptop” which is mentioned as godhsur in Hindi.

Festering since 2011, the protests over CSAT intensified this year, primarily because of hopes that the new government may be more inclined to overturn a decision of its predecessor. Also, the batch profile of the 88th Foundation Course at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie, shows a widening in the urban-rural divide, fuelling apprehensions among those already crying foul over CSAT.

In the 269-strong batch, 27.13 per cent had a rural background. In the 86th Foundation Course — for CSE 2010 — the rural background component was 29.3 per cent. While this drop is being attributed to CSAT, the profile of batches in the previous decade shows a significant drop in rural candidates even when the old Prelims format was in place. So, the reasons for this dip could lie elsewhere.

Not due to CSAT alone

Similarly, their use of data from UPSC annual reports to show a drop in the number of students taking the Mains examination in languages other than English as a result of language medium students failing because of CSAT does not stand scrutiny. There has been a downward trend over the past several years with English becoming the more preferred language for taking the examination.

If anything, CSE 2012 saw the number of students opting for Hindi in the Essay paper of the Mains go up to 1,956 from the earlier four year-low of 1,682 in 2011. The same trend cuts across Kannada, Tamil and Telugu; the three languages flagged by the protesters in one of their petitions.

With the admit cards now being issued for the Prelims and the government informing Parliament that it would not intervene to make UPSC stop the process, many aspirants are now working overtime to crack CSAT with the intention of going to court subsequently to at least seek a scaling of marks so that humanities students do not suffer. If nothing works, they may go for the jugular and seek the cancellation of UPSC’s notifications of CSE 2011, 2012 and 2013.

anita.joshua@thehindu.co.in

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