MPSC Chairman pledges exam reforms
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, November 25 2019: Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Laipharkpam Nishikanta has pledged to reform the way recruitment tests and competitive exams are conducted by the commission.

Speaking to media persons at the North AOC office of MPSC today, Nishikanta said that there is a need to reform all levels of examination starting from question setting to codification, evaluation of answer sheets and synchronisation.

Examinations conducted by MPSC follow UPSC's model but there is no harm in making certain local adjustments.

He expressed keen desire to introduce digital examination system which has been already adopted for recruitment in army and also other competitive examinations.

MPSC Chairman : Lt Gen (retd) Laipharkpam Nishikanta

This would certainly reduce the room for manipulation apart from speeding examination processes.

In any examination conducted by MPSC, it takes full responsibility for only around 20 per cent while the remaining processes are outsourced, Nishikanta said.

The processes of setting questions, codification, evaluation of answer sheets and synchronisation are not handled directly by MPSC but all these processes are outsourced, he said.

The commission's role to supervise and control these processes are limited.

As such, the existing mode of conducting examinations must be reformed, asserted the Chairman.

To a query, Nishikanta said that usually three sets of question papers are prepared and one set is printed.

From now on, around 10 sets of question papers would be collected from experts and two/three questions would be selected from each of them to form the ultimate question paper.

The question setters would also give appropriate answers, he said.

This system was not followed earlier.

The question setters did not provide answers for the questions they set.

On the other hand, those who evaluate answer sheets are different from the question setters.

On evaluation of answer sheets, the MPSC Chairman said that one individual would now evaluate just one or two question(s) against the earlier practice of one individual evaluating a whole answer sheet.

Likewise, there are certain areas which need reform at the level of codification and synchronisation.

All these proposes reforms are aimed at making all examinations conducted by MPSC clean and transparent but it would need manpower, Nishikanta said.

But MPSC has been suffering shortage of manpower.

At the moment, there is shortage of manpower by 23 per cent.

The shortage is around 45 per cent for Grade A and 37 per cent for Grade B, he said.

If the digital examination system is adopted, not much manpower would be required, it would take much lesser time and there would be no room for manipulation, he asserted.

Examination for recruitment of Section Officers for engineering departments including MSPCL was held in March this year but the result was declared only today.

Around 13,000 people appeared in the examination and the question paper contained 71 questions.

It is only natural to take time in evaluating all the answer sheets, he said.

On promotion, the MPSC Chairman said that recommendations for promotion are sent to the commission through the Department of Personnel after holding meeting of Departmental Promotion Committee.

However, no promotion calendar can be seen in any department.

If the departments have their own promotion calendars, the process of promotion would be much easier and faster, he added.