The government has acquiesced meekly to the demands of a section of students to postpone the UPSC’s preliminary civil examination slated for August. A committee is already re-calibrating the mode of the exam process and the government could have asked the panel to expedite its work so that the tests could go on as scheduled and an understaffed department could cope better with a fixed calendar in place.
The concerns of students, as expressed by ABVP members, can be given due consideration by the committee in place. But, to accept their concerns over Hindi students being at a disadvantage in a CSAT test on the face of it and ask that the exams be put off is uncalled for. The evaluation process could be put off suitably or re-calibrated altogether to serve the legitimate demands of all sections of students. What we are witnessing is a narrow section of students holding the larger process to ransom. To draw a parallel to the postponement of counselling while affiliation of engineering and technical colleges could be decided upon by AICTE is illogical.
To find absolute clarity over the subjects, pattern of testing and equalisation of marks of students across different streams of academics in such a large country is not a task that can be undertaken to the satisfaction of all stakeholders. To consider demands and act on them is one thing, but to put off the exams altogether quite another when it comes to doing justice to those students who have based their career choices in consonance with the exam pattern and have already prepared for the tests from August 24.
