Row over CSAT
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: August 01, 2014 -

Oblivious to most of us back home where various issues have remained clouded paralysing normal life both in the hills and the valley, the clamour for reform in the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has been growing to its zenith in other parts of the country, with New Delhi as the main stage of protest for civil service aspirants with background of regional languages, more particularly Hindi, demanding scrapping of the papers on Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) contenting that these are in favour of those who have had English medium education.

With politicians from Hindi-speaking States including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, backing the demand of the agitating civil service aspirants, the issue has even reached the Parliament and the Government asked the three- member committee set up earlier under the chairmanship of former personnel secretary Arvind Verma to examine the grievances of the students to submit its report within a week.

The report has to be examined in consultation with UPSC before deciding on the fate of CSAT. With the ongoing protest becoming more intense with each passing day, shadow has also been cast on the fate of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 2014 scheduled to be held on August 24 even though UPSC has already started issuing e-admit cards to the candidates.

So, what exactly is this row over CSAT and how justifiable it is?

Based on the recommendation made by the SK Khanna Committee, UPSC had revised the syllabus for Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination and introduced CSAT in 2011.

While Paper I of CSAT covers General Studies, Paper II carries questions on comprehension; inter-personal skills; logical reasoning and analytical ability; basic numeracy; decision-making and problem solving; general mental ability; and English language comprehension skills (up to Class X level).

Out of 80 questions in Paper-II, about 8-9 related to English comprehension. It is with regard to this CSAT Paper-II and the 8-9 questions asked on English comprehension that so much fuss has been created by the Hindi and vernacular medium students.

Admitting that questions relating to English language comprehension skills are difficult for a Hindi-medium aspirant, who extensively relies on Hindi translation to understand, one simple question which the agitated civil service aspirants, who are going to be tomorrow’s bureaucracy and representatives of India at the International stages, need to answer and understand themselves is if they can’t cope with the stresses of answering eight to nine questions in the Prelims exam in English, how they are supposed to pass a full-fledged 300-mark English written paper in the Mains exam?

Moreover, when the question papers are translated into English and translations made in Hindi for the remaining 72 questions in the CSAT Paper-II, it is so absurd to demand for scrapping of the entire paper.