Civil Services Examination: The age problemr

Amar Yumnam *

The body responsible for the selection of personnel for the various services of the State government has recently announced a new notification for recruitment. This new notification has given rise to a controversy regarding the upper age limit.

Whereas the State government has set the upper age limit for the applicants at the age of 30, yet there are demands for raising this upper limit to 35.

Since this involves a tug of war between the government and the group who intend to join the services of the government to serve the causes of nation, we need to apply a serious thought to this issue.

Others’ Precedent: Let me start my own articulation on the debate with the most common approach both sides of the debate adopt. Well the government says the precedent of other States in the country adopting 35 years as the upper age limit is very limited.

Well this can be both true and untrue in the sense that Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh (staggered approach) and Chhattisgarh are perhaps the only States in the country adopting this approach of adopting an age limit higher than 30. But the fact remains that there are States adopting 35 or higher age limits in their recruitment to the State civil services.

But I feel very unease if we start arguing that we would adopt a policy or unadopt a policy on the basis of whether other States are doing it or not. I would rather say that this is an absolute collapse of contextual reasoning.

We do learn lessons from the experiences of others with a view to examine and evaluate their relevance in our context, but never for blind following. In fact, one serious drawback of the governance in the State so far is the failure to evolve contextual reasoning and contextual evolution of policies. But what is the government for if it cannot think and work contextually?

Minor and Big Issue: Before I present my intervention in an absolutely contextual way, I would rather like to be fully convinced the unquestionable superiority of a 30 year old over a 35 year old, unless one stretches the latter to 40 or so. I would rather feel that we are just expanding the scope of choice.

Contextual Issues: Let me start with the premise that the upper age limit should be restricted to 30. Well, this would be absolutely maintainable if we are able to provide the opportunity of joining the civil services of the State on a yearly basis. But the fact is we have not been doing so.

By this failure to recruit regularly on a yearly basis, we have denied a democratic right and laudable intention to serve the cause of the nation to quite a few academic generations.

We do know that civil services are not the only options for serving the nation, but having said this we must also admit that the government over the years have failed to evolve policies for growth and diversification of the State’s economy. Besides, we cannot fault any educated person for wanting to join the services of the state at a time when the leaders keep on harping on the “misguided youths issue”.

Another reality is that we had failed to conduct the recruitment for continuously seven-eight years. This being so the relaxation definitely should be by 7 to 8 years instead of 35, democratically speaking. One may argue that this relaxation was provided in last year’s recruitment, and those not accommodated in it should be discounted.

I would rather disagree with this line of reasoning on more than one count. First, the non-holding of recruitment was longer than a year. Secondly, one’s capability can never be established from a single shot of examination. This is the reason why we provide the candidates to appear in the recruitment examinations more than once. So the raising of upper age limit should continue at least for three years if not for the number of years when the recruitment was not done.

I understand that the State government would definitely like to invite the educated youth to think for the sate and not entertain any grudge against the government.

I personally feel that the government can ill afford any educated section of the youth to feel a feeling of denial of opportunities. As economist Roemer says the opportunity set is more significant than any in explaining development experience or otherwise. Let us not restrict the already limited opportunity set to a few and widen the competition.

Competition is the mantra now, and let us follow this dictum by widening the set of competitors through raising the upper age limit.