With the Government of India approving a proposal in March this year to
introduce an aptitude test in place of the existing optional paper in
the Civils preliminary examination, aspirants for the civil services
will face a different pattern of examination from next year (2011). The
candidates will now have to , for the prelims exam, appear in two
objective-type papers having special emphasis on testing their "aptitude
for civil services" as well as on "ethical and moral dimension of
decision-making" under a new moniker CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test
).
Both these papers — having equal weightage — will be common to all
candidates in place of the one common paper (general awareness) and one
optional paper (any particular subject of choice) under the existing
system which lays greater emphasis on subject knowledge.
As of now, the change will be effective only for the first stage of the
Civil Services Examination (CSE) from 2011 onwards. The second and third
stages — Main Examination and interview respectively — may remain
unchanged till a committee of experts submits its report after a
thorough analysis. The CSAT will test the aptitude of the candidate
rather than memory testing, according to officials. Each year 500000
applicants apply for Civil Services Examination (Preliminary). From
2011, the pattern of new civil services exam will be CSAT, main exam and
interview.
The first question which would come to many people would be - why is this change made?
Committees like the second Administrative Reforms Commission, while
suggesting key changes, gave importance to ‘aptitude’ of candidates
rather than their knowledge of a particular subject. In their view, specialization in specific subjects has no direct correlation with those
people being good civil servants. This, along with the obscurity in
disclosure of individual performances was the key aspects of change
recommendations. Also, bringing the scores of individuals taking
different optional papers onto a common comparable scale leaves many
issues open to debate. Hence, UPSC has decided to do away with the
optional paper and instead introduced General Aptitude paper in its
place.
This is a major change in the exam pattern after the introduction of
Negative marking system last year in the Civil Services Examination.
Proposed changes/improvements lined up for the future are the change in
the Mains pattern and Online Application system. |
