UPSC dumps English

• Aspirants reject govt's proposal

New Delhi: Civil Service aspirants rejected the government's proposal to not include English marks for gradation. The protesting Union Public Service Commission Civil Service (UPSC) aspirants said they were not satisfied with these changes and termed them ‘too superficial’.

Many among them said they will continue their fight for complete scrapping of the CSAT paper and announced that they would protest at Jantar Mantar from Tuesday.

"We have been protesting for two months now, but our demands are different from what has been 'redressed' by the minister. We are not against English language per se but we want the CSAT to be scrapped because of the nature of the CSAT paper II which puts Hindi and humanities students at a disadvantage," said Laxman, a UPSC aspirant.

The protests intensified recently after applicants were issued admit cards. Last week, a section of the protesters burnt their admit cards as a mark of defiance.

"We demand complete scrapping of CSAT. We have decided to continue our fight from Jantar Mantar," Pawan, a UPSC aspirant who has been leading the protest, said.

Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh on Monday, announced in the parliament that English marks of CSAT-II will not be included for gradation or merit, and candidates of 2011, when CSAT was first introduced, may get another chance to appear for the test next year.

Pawan said this was not what the protesters have been demanding. "We never asked for modification of CSAT pattern. Instead, our demand is to abolish this test for the welfare of lakhs of students who have studied in Hindi medium," he said.

Another issue raised by students is the English to Hindi translation. "The question papers have weird translations of English words which do not make any sense. For example the word steel plant was translated into 'Lohe Ka Paudha' in one of the papers. How are we to give exams in such a condition?" said a student, who did not wish to be named.

The earlier format had a paper on general studies and one on an optional subject, which has now been replaced by CSAT-I and CSAT-II. The CSAT-II carries 80 questions of 200 marks in all, of which 8-9 questions are based on English comprehension. These 8-9 questions, which carry around 22 marks, will now no longer be counted in the overall tally for gradation. The CSAT comprises questions based on communication skill, logical reasoning and analytical ability, basic numeracy, data interpretation and English comprehension..