UPSC's discrimination towards Telugu medium students

Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has announced a new pattern of examination on March 5. The new pattern is detrimental to the interest of Civil Service aspirants who are writing exam in Telugu or who have opted for Telugu Literature as one of the optional subject in the Mains exam. These changes will have major impact on the Andhra Pradesh aspirants and the same needs to be amended due to the following grounds.

• As per the new norm, students opting to write the exam in Telugu should have studied in Telugu medium at the degree level. Such new norms will make it difficult for many aspirants from rural areas who have studied in Telugu medium till school and moved to English medium for better prospects.

• From the UPSC annual reports, it is clear that literature subjects have the highest success rate in the Civil Services examination and Telugu Literature is a popular optional subject for aspirants of Andhra Pradesh. Earlier any candidate could opt for Telugu literature as optional irrespective of his subject in graduation. But now, only those who studied literature in graduation will be allowed to do so. These restrictions in choosing language of Literature will impede the success of many Andhra Pradesh students, as Hindi medium students enjoy the advantage of appearing in Hindi language.

• A Candidates who have done their graduation in Telugu medium and wish to write Mains exam in Telugu medium can do so only if there are more than 25 candidates who are ready to write Mains in Telugu. Otherwise, they have to write exams in English or Hindi. How can we expect a candidate who never studied in English medium in his whole academic career can attempt mains in English medium?

• . English exam in Civils main used to test the basic knowledge of candidates in this subject. Candidates were supposed to get pass marks in this subject and these marks were not given much importance. This system is also changed now. English paper will be for 100 marks now and the marks secured in this subject will also be considered. This change will affect the chances of candidates who come from rural areas of Andhra Pradesh.

• A Another ambiguity is that UPSC has notified that the commission will have the discretion to fix qualifying marks in any or all papers of examination. This indicates that if a Telugu student does well in all the papers, but fails to score minimum marks in English paper, his selection into the merit list would be impossible.

Solutions

• A It is unrealistic to expect candidates to show their true intellectual traits and depth of understanding in the answers they write in the language other than their mother tongue. Hence UPSC has to amend the exam pattern, so that those who have studied in Telugu medium in school should be allowed to take the test in Telugu medium or Literature.

• Limitation of minimum 25 members for any regional language needs to be removed.