Hurdles for rural aspirants

Dr Ashwani Mahajan
After changing rules of Civil Services (preliminary) Examinations in 2011, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has now changed rules for Main Examination too. Aspirants who have been preparing for this examination for years are highly perturbed. Aspirants are not only giving memorandums to the government, demonstrations are also going on at various places. Aspirants are demanding increase in number of attempts and relaxation of age limit, as new changes require them to make preparation afresh.
Amidst these demands, statement of the minister of government of India, that there is no proposal for increasing the number of attempts or raising the age limits, has multiplied the worries of the aspirants and they are grossly nervous.
However, the question is not merely of increasing attempts of raising age limit; the issue is much deep rooted. Fact of the matter is that changes being mooted are directed against aspirants from rural background and aspirants from rural background are at gross disadvantage. According to the statistics published by Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, which imparts training to top rankers of Civil Services Examination; before Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination rules 2011 made applicable, between 2009 and 2011, 63 to 67 percent top rankers used to be from rural background. In 2012, after new rules were made applicable, this number has come down to only 27 percent. Among male candidates this number is 31 percent and for females, it is 16 percent. Changes introduced and being introduced are not only directed against candidates with Hindi and Vernacular languages medium, they are also against students who have not studied mathematics and science.
Economic policies initiated since 1991 have been so biased in favour of corporates, mainly concentrated in urban areas; that rural incomes have continuously been coming down. Share of agriculture in GDP main occupation in rural areas, which was 38 percent in 1980-81, has now come down to merely 13.7 percent. Villages lack in facilities like education, health, sanitation, transport, drinking water etc. Despites all these deprivations, children and youth from rural areas have been working hard to achieve heights in education and other fields.
If we talk of civil services, students with rural background used to be at par with their urban counterparts. Given the fact that share of urban population in India is 31 percent and the share of successful candidate with urban background in civil services was also around 32 to 35 percent. However, with change in Civil Services Examination rules, getting success in this examination is becoming a distant dream for rural youth with introduction of new Civil Services Aptitude Paper in 2011 in preliminary examination, a candidate has to pass a test comprising mainly of mathematics, reasoning and civil services aptitude. Justifying the new rules, UPSC’s argument is that due to changing expectation from the civil servants in the country these changes were called for. UPSC says that from civil servants it is expected that they not only function effectively in the new environment, but also make their seniors aware of the problems being faced by them. For this reason, testing of required aptitude becomes imperative.
After changing rules for Preliminary Examination, now even rules of Main Examination have also been changed. For a long time, the exercise for change in syllabus of Main Examination was going on, which were being under severe criticism. Main objection in rules proposed therein was that test of English language was not only being made compulsory, marks obtained in this test were also supposed to be included in the result for making merit list. But due to widespread criticism of these proposals, government had to do away with compulsory English language paper; however other changes were adopted almost ditto. According to new rules, Civil Services (Main) Examination will comprise of 7 papers, out of which 4 papers would be of General Studies, two of the optional subject and one of Essay. All seven papers would carry 250 marks each, totaling 1750 marks for Main Examination. It may be noted that in the previous syllabus, Main Examination comprised of only 2 papers in General Studies. But there are four general studies papers now; first paper is- Indian Heritage and Culture, History and Geography of the World and Society, second is – Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations, third paper is – Technology, Economic Development, Bio-diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management and the fourth paper is named as Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude. In place of two options, with two papers each, now there will be only one optional subject, with two papers.
Main argument of the government is that since there is no fundamental change in the main examination, in terms of maximum marks and the quantum of course, there is no justification for increasing the number of attempts and raising the age limit.
But basic issue is not that simple about giving or not giving these reliefs to the aspirants. Issue is much bigger and serious. The proposed scheme of examination and the new curriculum is so designed that it is not suited for candidates with rural backgrounds. Subjects such as ethics are generally not taught in rural schools and colleges. With the introduction of such subjects, rural background students will fall behind their urban counterparts.  Detailed analysis of the curriculum shows that the type of information required from candidates necessitates their access to the computer and the Internet, which are generally lacking in village infrastructure. Apart from this, rural students would also fall behind in terms of references and reports of the Government and international agencies, which are required to be given as references for the case studies so included in the syllabus; as it would not only require access to internet, but also urban infrastructure.
One can say that proposed scheme of examination and curricula would widen rural urban divide further and the hope of the rural aspirants would get a big setback and Government’s claims of inclusive growth would also be negated in the process.

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