1. Prologue
2. Shocker#1: CSAT paper-2 has too much comprehension & English
3. Shocker#2: CSAT is Pro-Engineer & Anti Humanities
4. Shocker#3: UPSC members are more “reformist” than Nigvekar!
5. Combine Prelims +Mains to reduce time span
6. Add more exam centers
7. CSAT: there Need for Transparency
8. Conduct Prelims online to reduce time span
9. Give Prelim score card with 2 year validity
10. Why Minimum 50% in graduation?
11. One cycle of UPSC =15 months wasted
12. Download Full Report of Nigvekar

Prologue

Highlights of [Nigvekar] Committee on civil service exam reforms: this article series has four part

1. PART1: What inputs Nigvekar got from eminent people including Dr.Kalam, CAG , CIC, various UPSC members, + age attempt related issues.
2. PART2: prelim reforms.
3. PART3: mains reforms.
4. PART4: Interview reforms.

First let’s check the shockers (shocker in the sense that UPSC’s official research wing admits it.)

Shocker#1: CSAT paper-2 has too much comprehension & English

(ch3. Page46, Input from UPSC’s own research wing)

1. In CSAT Paper II: too many questions were asked from comprehension section, it needs to be reduced slightly in favor of other type of aptitude questions.
2. Remove the separate English comprehension section from Paper II, because it benefits more to urban background English medium aspirants.
3. CSAT pattern is a little bit advantageous to urban candidates.
4. It will be better to reduce the English part in CSAT, and instead set bit tougher questions in the compulsory English paper at mains level.

Shocker#2: CSAT is Pro-Engineer & Anti Humanities

(Ch3 Page46: Input From UPSC’s In-house Research Wing)

• CSAT structure is not proper because humanities stream students cannot perform better in this system.
• Only one cluster of science stream (=Engineers) enters the mains exam in this structure.
• CSAT Paper II has raised doubts about the competence of non-math background and non-English background candidate in taking this exam successfully. Since contents of CSAT paper is not a part of general (humanities) curriculum, it has given edge to science background candidates.
• The CSAT Paper-I (General studies) is difficult compared to paper-II (Aptitude test). The candidates who are good in general studies, are at disadvantage, because they can’t get any edge with general studies.
• On the other side, candidates good in paper-II(Aptitude) gets advantage, & they can make though the exam even without much study of general studies.
• Aspirants with Engineering background formed the major chunk of aspirants who qualified the prelims in the first attempt. (Ref. Ch3, Page54)

Annex-1, Page 151

• The Preliminary Examination pattern introduced from CSE, 2011 seems to be skewed in favour of candidates from science background. Our endeavour should be to provide level playing field. There should be equal weightage in all the sub-sections.
• In the CS (Main) Examination, candidates are mainly corning from science background. There is actually a testing of cramming capacity since the curriculum is too large.
• We should try to have persons with basic skills like leadership quality. The compulsory papers suggested by the Alagh Committee are more relevant. E-governance should also be added in the scheme.

Shocker#3: UPSC members are more “reformist” than Nigvekar!

26/2/2012: Nigvekar interacts with UPSC members: Rajni Razdan, Alka Sirohi, KK Paul, Nirmal Sharma, et al. During the meeting, following suggestions came. ( as per Committee report Page135 onwards)

Anyways, let’s check the report:

Combine Prelims +Mains to reduce time span

(Input from UPSC members Rajni Razdan, Alka Sirohi, KK Paul et al, from Page135)

• Combine prelims and Mains exam to reduce the time to conduct exam.
• (Because) Time span of the exam should be compressed. This will attract youths from other professions to take the examination, who do not participate because of sacrifice of time.
• Nigvekar himself: silent on whether he agrees or not.

Add more exam centers

(input from UPSC’s own research wing, Ch3.Page51)

• The number of exanth ation centers for boili the civil services preliminary and mains exam should be increased, covering more tier II cities, so that the rural people can get easy access to the venue.

Nigvekar himself: silent on whether he agrees or not.

CSAT: there Need for Transparency

(Input from UPSC’s own research wing- from Page: 49)

1. If possible Xerox copies of preliminary paper answer sheet should be provided to candidates. Some state public service commission have already adopted this system.
2. Candidates marks must be displayed and cut off mark be shown. Use carbon copy answersheet sheets, so that candidates can take that copy along with them.
3. Compulsory language paper in Civil Services Main examination should carry weightage in total marks. Because language gives insight about the society.

Nigvekar himself: silent on whether he agrees or not.

Conduct Prelims online to reduce time span

1. UPSC should switch over to an on-line mode of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination in a time bound manner. (Because) Quite a few of the good candidates may not be interested to stay indefinitely in a selection process which is stretched too long. (Nigvekar himself on Page98)
2. UPSC should critically and urgently examine, how the Preliminary Examination can be conducted on-line like the GRE/GMAT Examinations worldwide. Full use of modern technology should be made. ON line Preliminary Examination should be introduced by the UPSC as early as possible.

Nigvekar himself recommended in Ch6

Give Prelim score card with 2 year validity

(Input from UPSC’s own research wing- from Page48)

• The Prelims can be made on-line with a validity of two years.
• Candidates who once passed preliminary examination should not be required to appear in the same for next 2 attempts.
• This will help candidates to prepare for the Civil Services (Main) Examination.
• (similar suggestion from UPSC members as well)

Nigvekar himself silent on whether he agrees or not.

Why Minimum 50% in graduation?

Nigvekar recommends that people with less than 50% in graduation, should not be allowed to sit in UPSC exam. He explains the reasons in ch4, page 67 onwards

#1 toppers have more than 50%

• From the statistical analysis of topper profiles from 2007-2011, it can be seen that almost all candidates who are successful in the CS (Main) examination have obtained more than 50% marks at the graduation level.
• Keeping this in view, it is logical to prescribe a certain minimum standard in the graduation degree for determining the eligibility of candidates.
• This would serve a twin purpose. First quite a few non serious candidates would be filtered out at the initial stage itself.
• These would be those candidates who have, in any case, almost no chance of success in this fiercely fought competitive examination.
• This would therefore reduce the number of candidates applying for this examination.

#2 Non serious junta (presumable) has bogus academic record

• At present, only around 50% of the candidates who apply for the civil services examination actually appear in it. It is a fair assumption that most of the candidates who apply and then do not appear in the examination are non-serious candidates with probably low performance in their graduation level examination.
• This would therefore reduce the logistic burden of the commission significantly.

#3: Juntaa shouldn’t prepare UPSC at the cost of College exams

• More importantly, it would also be beneficial to these candidates since, instead of spending a huge amount of time, energy and resources for preparing for this examination, where their chances of success are minimal, they could more gainfully look for other career opportunities and avoid frustration.
• This would also put more value on the University education system with candidates giving it due care and attention and applying themselves towards a better performance at the graduation level. The committee during its course of interaction with various persons got a positive feedback in this regard that there must be some minimum percentage of marks fixed to take care of the fact that the candidate has a consistent academic record.

One cycle of UPSC =15 months wasted

1. The total time taken in the entire selection process is about 15 months at present.
2. This is quite long and makes the entire selection process quite arduous as compared to any similar process offered in Private/Public Sector.
3. This acts as a disincentive to some of the bright candidates and dissuade them from joining the civil services because of their financial compulsory and family responsibilities.

Solutions?

Download Full Report of Nigvekar

For the public record, I’ve uploaded entire report here:

https://files.secureserver.net/0fxmWGvTEcjmND

But I don’t recommend you download his report (and waste your internet bandwidth). The reasons are following:

1. Total 50 MB in size. Hardly *that* useful for exam.
2. ch1 talks about evolution of civil service exam- from British Raj till now. The summary already available in 2^nd ARC reports. This chapter contains deep Ph.D, that useless for studies (Even for Public Administration).
3. ch2 talks about the recommendations of Committees before Nigvekar (Kothari, Khanna, Alagh etc. but their summary also available in 2^nd ARC report- in more eye candy fonts. This pdf has bad quality. (Because UPSC itself gave low quality Xerox to me.)
4. Ch3, 4, 5, 6 and annex 1 is/will be covered in my [Nigvekar] series four articles.
5. Annex 2 deals with recruitment system in USA, France etc. = useless because that syllabus topic was helpful in MCQs of Public Administration prelims. But now prelims doesn’t have Public Administration or any other optional subjects.

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