Students who were burning midnight oil for appearing in the civil services examination of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) expressed mixed reactions over Central government’s decision on asking UPSC to postpone the preliminary examination which was scheduled for next month till there is clarity on the syllabus and examination pattern.
Some aspirants said that students would face difficulties to complete the new syllabus if UPSC makes any changes now as they prepared for the examination based on its current syllabus.
Prayag IAS academy director RA Khan said that UPSC had recently adopted Civil Services Aptitude Tests (CSAT) in preliminary examination and such a pattern was putting Hindi language aspirants at a disadvantage. In this pattern, students were selected in the civil services examination by obtaining around 750 marks and above out of total 2200 marks while around 1050 were qualifying marks for this examination earlier.
Moreover, the pass percentage of Hindi language aspirants and those belonging to rural areas were very minimal. CSAT was formed in such a way that students studying in public schools and urban areas were benefited more than those students studying in rural areas. According to him, UPSC should make such syllabus wherein there should not be any disparity between rural and urban students.
Neha, a civil service aspirant said, “I had prepared for this examination based on current syllabus and there is no confirmation yet from the UPSC on whether the preliminary exams will be rescheduled from its present date of August 24.”
UPSC should introduce new syllabus after completion of preliminary examination this year so that aspirants would get enough time for preperation. Students would face difficulties to complete the new syllabus if UPSC makes any changes now, she added
It should be mentioned here that after protests by the Hindi language civil service aspirants in demanding of scrapping CSAT and a compulsory English paper in the Civil Services examination, the government on Tuesday asked UPSC to postpone the preliminary leg of the examination scheduled in the month of August till there is clarity on the syllabus and the examination pattern.