Rehan Ahmed
The English Essay is the most tricky paper of the CSS examination. It is unpredictable and the primary reason to eliminate the students, especially those who have not mastered the art of English expression. Therefore, students from a background in Urdu and technical education find it a most problematic endeavour. However, it raises the fundamental question, does it relate to the intricacies of civil services?
The civil service does not require philosopher kings any more. The exaggerated expression needs to be updated in the specialized and technological administration. The administration has gone intelligent, technical and specialized. The correlation of civil service examination with the civil service complications is critical for the cause of qualitative recruitment. The general recruitment mode needs to be updated, more realistic, and reliable in modern administration. Despite all archaic models of existing civil service, it can not bear the burnt of philosopher kings and generalists.
The primary question is, who prepares papers for the civil service examination? Then, who designs, especially the paper of English Essay? How can descriptive and narrative topics of an essay make a civil servant? How can a euphemistic expression of a particular irrelevant essay make a civil servant of administration, police, foreign service and accounts simultaneously? Is it not less than a joke? What are these criteria? First, essay writing does not meet the necessities of the civil service; then, if it is so, how can an essay be so distant from the combined traits of civil service? At least, the essays on law, governance, and public policy can relate to civil service, but descriptive and narrative topics could be better used for article writing than civil service recruitment.
The essay paper for CSS 2023 does not reflect the spirit of civil services. It is already challenging to recruit twelve specialized services through a generalist examination, so recruiting the specialized cadres through a descriptive essay is unfortunate. According to article 242 of the constitution, read with the FPSC ordinance, it is the primary obligation of the FPSC to recruit qualitative human resources in civil services. CSS is celebrated as the premier public examination in Pakistan. However, it must reflect the spirit of civil service. Establishment Division is responsible for the federal public human resource and must ensure that Essay remains in the strict domain of civil service necessities.
Professionals, rather than professors, must prepare the papers of CSS. The essay paper should carry out analysis, research and objective reasoning rather than expressing a few euphemistic narrations. The essay paper 2023 is in denial of the administrative compulsions of civil services.
What are these essays to do with the civil services? Does it correlate with the diplomacy of foreign service? Is it policing? Is it the administration? Is it audit and accounts service? By all means, it is an administrative farce. The students who qualify on these descriptive narrations shall never be better civil servants. Any examination that can not measure the aptitude, inclination and administrative compulsions of civil services must be scrapped and reformed accordingly.
