CHOOSING CIVIL SERVICES AS CAREER

ARTICLE: ON CIVIL SERVICES
PUBLISHED IN : GREATERKASHMIR - J&K'S LEADING DAILY NEWSPAPER


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Choosing Civil Services as a Career

By
Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, IFS

The system of public administration has sailed through thick and thins of the world history, be it democracies or dictatorships, and is here to stay as the most viable and only mechanism of good governance with evident deliverables. Although differences may remain about choice of variants of public administration but the bottom-line remains that administrative machinery can hardly be dispensed with. The organization of working within a system may range on a scale from formal to informal. Scholars like Max Weber have stressed upon the formal bureaucratic system to the contrary of Etizioni suggesting existence of informal organization within a formal system for efficient governance and achieving the goals set thereupon. Alvin Gouldner and Peter Blau citing example of Federal Bureau of Investigation and that of Gypsum workers in America have proved that organizations with an informal relationship within the formal structure of administration have higher success rate and easier achieving of the goals. Many sociologist and public administration scholars have highlighted that too much of rules and regulations, that is formal system, lead to displacement of goals for which the society at large suffers and moreover it has been stressed that bureaucrats in a formal system lose the innovativeness and can’t take independent decisions. From capitalist, socialist to communist states the requirements of the administrative machinery differ. But the bottom-line of course remains that the aspirants endeavoring to join the administrative machinery have to be sensitive to the changing needs of times along with the challenges and opportunities this system offers therein. In India, as in other developed and most developing countries, the civil services represent the administrative framework of the country under the control of political leadership. Governments comes and go but this permanent framework has to stay, it is in this backdrop we have to underline that civil services has to be chosen as a full time career option by our youth and not merely a source of elite employment based on tough competitive examinations at national as well as state level. Only then our next generation administrators will withstand challenges ahead and respond resiliently. The civil services ought to be given the top most priority in the career selection as well only then we can have win-win situation both for the administration as well as the administration.

Few days back the Jammu and Kashmir State Public Service Commission notified about four hundred vacancies in state administration to be filled up based on the performance of eligible graduates in the forthcoming combined services competitive examination. Days after the newspapers were flooded with advertisements offering coaching classes and so on. Interestingly another private institute made a diagrammatic presentation of region-wise final selections in the previous three examinations conducted by the public service commission. Clubbing Jammu with Ladakh it highlighted the dismal performance of Kashmir province with only about 15-20% seats to its kitty. Based on it the institute gave a “wake up call” to kashmiris to join the coaching and reverse this trend. The figures were convincing but the approach was not. Jammu certainly performed far better than Kashmir province in the previous competitive examination bagging 110 out of the total 137 selections. But going through the list critically one finds that a major chunk of the seats have gone to aspirants from remote areas of Rajouri, Poonch, Doda, Kishtwar, Reasi, Billawar and the like. The urban areas had comparatively low performance in Jammu even. Candidates from rural areas did perform better in almost all categories across the services. Here is the point to ponder that what went wrong resulting such a skewed distribution of selections in the state administration. It is certainly not all about a Jammu Vs Kashmir story but one has to bear in mind that individual efforts make upto the final list and analyzing the macroscopic trend we miss out the basics of the examination which aspirants fail to take cognizance of. First of all we have to appreciate those individual efforts behind the success and tracing these paths along with introspecting the reasons of failure.

In this regard, the first question that comes to mind is about the right time of opting for civil services. Although there is no universally agreed upon criteria but going by the efforts it require to crack the tough competitive examinations the students in higher secondary school should have decided to take on the civil services examination and then decide the path to be traversed accordingly. Some would like to go through the professional colleges and others through general degree course and many even sit at home doing correspondence course (Distance Learning) and preparing for civil services. The last lot is the one which misses out the college life altogether but the life after that compensates more than that. But still it is not advisable to go upto that extent since one has to keep an alternative option in mind to fall back. Those entering the professional colleges have an added advantage. Having decided to take on the competitive examination after the degree course one channelizes the energy in professional college accordingly by opting the professional subject for the examination as well as keep abreast with the current happenings in the country as well as around the globe. By the time this lot reaches the final year of college they are already prepared to take head on the tough nut and also have become the right stuff for shouldering the responsibility of being an administrator. They are rightly termed as Bureaucrats-cum-Technocrats. The other category is of those aspirants who opt for general subjects of either science or humanities and keep preparing for the mega examination along with their college challenges. Their performance is fairly good enough. Going by the UPSC statistics the highest success ratio has been attributed to the professional subjects like Veterinary Science, Medical Science, Engineering, Agriculture, and also Psychology. But this high success rate is of course because of a meager number of candidates opting these subjects. The most commonly opted subjects like sociology, political science, public administration etc have a low success rate in terms of number of candidates appearing in the preliminary examination but the competition is softened as compared to the technical subjects. But the issue remains that at about 18 years of age or so the student is not aware of complexities of this examination and also is not mature enough to take independent decision about career option so one has to deliberate upon it within the peer group, with parents and teacher. Parents in deed have the ultimate role to play in helping the child to choose the career and if civil services is chosen as a career option then deliberate upon the path to be adopted , that is via professional college or otherwise. All alternate options have to be born in mind before taking the final decision.

Having decided so the next step is choosing optional for the competitive examination and that depends to a greater extent on the degree course one had decided to go through. Many candidates have done engineering and mathematics degrees, also those from the chemicals and physical sciences, do opt for the core humanities subjects like sociology, political science, public administration, anthropology etc and the vice-versa is can, of course, not be the case. Another category of professionals from medicine, veterinary and agriculture go ahead with their own subjects often with a very high success ratio. But the general trend remains that of opting for the general subjects often coupled with a general degree course. Chose optional is the toughest decision to be made, even tougher then choosing civil services as a career, because once being a year or half into the preparation it is difficult to revert back and for doing so one has to make some uncalled for sacrifices of time as well as money. Here counseling matters a lot for which the aspirants can consult seniors, successful candidates and better those who could not make it to the final list. Parents again have a major role in this. If one spends a couple of months in choosing the optional that is always better than reverting after a year into the preparation.

But the decision making process does not end up here, one has to take decisions at every step in the run up to the final selection, as do one has to make decisions as an administrator for the rest of service life. The ambit of this examination is too vast and for the general studies it is said that anything under the sky could be asked, especially in the preliminary examination. Given these circumstances one has to make a fool-proof strategy to decide what to study and also what not to study, the latter being more important when one has to choose from an ocean of study material available in the market today. The civil services examination over past two decades has given rise to an industry all over the country with coaching institutes mushrooming in every nook and corner; and also a variety of study material circulated in the market. One has to be too selective in choosing the study material as one can observe that most of the competitive magazines printed in lacks of numbers appear just similar tomatoes in the basket so the question is how to be different while study as well as during the examination. To be noticed one has to do some smart work apart from the hard work and it is this smart work which with its added advantage makes the difference. For both selections of study material as well as coaching institute one has to be very selective and take decision after consulting the relevant persons in this field. Coaching helps only when one has completed the study at own and looks for that extra mile which includes writing style, mock tests, group discussions and so on. Also beginners can opt for coaching especially in general studies if they feel not well versed with the demands of this examination because as stated above ‘what not to study is more important than what to study’ in this examination. Often students have a tendency of not sharing their thoughts or notes with others but it is largely felt that group study by means of its complimentarity is helpful both in terms of time saving as well as the richness of study material or notes being prepared for the examination. Since the examination is conducted to choose the administrators to take up the responsibilities of the public administration and good governance so the examiners definitely give attention to the administrative acumen of the candidates reflected in their writing, that is how effectively they put their innovative ideas into writing the answers. It means one has to be different to be noticed therein and that call for a pragmatism of highest approach in a holistic manner. The organized preparation not only makes the examination a smooth sailing but also makes the right kind of administrative stuff among the aspirants. Another important point to be kept in mind is that success and failure are two sides of same coin and the outcome will depend on how tossed it. If such an organized strategy as adopted for preparation of this examination, ranging over a couple of years, it is sure that even in case of failure what is gained during the process is not going to be lost, instead it will get reflected in once personality as an evident feature. But on the other hand if this challenge is taken only as just another job opportunity then failure may be a complicated and permanent loss, which has to be avoided to ensure the human resource development in any case. For a slaughterhouse it is said that “except the last cry of the animal nothing goes waste” which means how efficiently each and every part of the slaughtered animal is converted into a valued product for direct or indirect consumption or for the commercial purpose. A similar analogy can be drawn for this preparation as well, if it is done in the right way, holistic manner, under proper guidance, not even a word learned will go waste irrespective of the outcome of the examination.

But going by the present trend it is evident that civil services is mostly considered as another job opportunity by most of the educated youth hence the approach adopted is not the one would come true on the scale of administrative efficiency. The approach has to be different, it has to be professional only then one can contribute religiously to the service of humanity through the public administration. Right kind of preparation methodology will serve both purposes viz a fool-proof preparation for the examination as well as proving as an efficient and dedicated administrator beyond the selection hurdle. The bottom-line remains that the younger generation has to organize effectively to take this challenge in a right way under proper guidance and also keeping in mind the alternative lines of action as well as opportunities to be explored. If such an approach is adopted by the students only then they can expect a comfortable sailing through the multi-staged competitive examination as well contribute towards an innovative administration as discussed in the opening paragraph above.

Therefore the situation calls for bringing a change in mindset of the students and initiating a movement across the valley if the population here has to make its presence felt in the state administration as well as at the national level. The responsibility has to be equally shared by the aspirants, parents, teachers, administrators, and concerned members of the civil society here. There is no denying the fact that the equitable development of region would also include an equitable power sharing also and any region left out of the decision-making circles of the administration always carries a risk of being ignored. It is not because those at the helm of affairs would ignore the areas unrepresented but the specific needs and problems may go unaddressed for lack of sensitization up to the required level. Those from outside are of course thought to be value neutral in their approach but at the same time the local needs are many times under the danger of being ignored, so we have to make it a complimentary process. All this would be possible only when there is an awakening among the younger generation to shoulder these responsibilities towards the society. This is the high time we should make the schools, colleges and universities here as the epicenters of such an awakening by organizing workshops and awareness programmes for the students in this regard. We owe a lot to the society which cannot be ignored and this, perhaps, would be one among the best ways to pay back to the society in a better way. Still we have options and alternatives at our hands but in Baba Amte’s words “the silent majority will have to speak until it is made to exist as a silenced majority.


(The author is an IFS officer presently posted in Srinagar. Feedback at shahidiqbalc@gmail.com)