KARACHI:
At what point does a competitive examination stop being about selecting the competent and become about eliminating candidates for the sake of elimination?
The recent PMS result in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has left many aspirants questioning whether they were genuinely unable to meet the required standard, or whether the system simply had to narrow the pool to a predetermined number. Only 50 students were passed among 5,000 for 77 advertised positions. Did the examiners find only 50 competent students? There is a difference between failing a candidate because they are incompetent and failing them because too many candidates cannot be allowed to pass. This creates confusion among students about whether their preparation was not enough, strategy was wrong or was it just the mood of the examiner that caused no less than 4,950 students to fail.
Behind every candidate are months, often years, of preparation, sleepless nights, financial sacrifices, postponed careers and families’ expectations. With employment opportunities already scarce, the PMS is one of the few avenues young people wait years to pursue. Failure is understandable when a candidate genuinely falls short. What is difficult to accept, however, is the possibility of elimination for the sake of elimination. People with very high scores are failed in one or two subjects, even though most students feel certain they did well on their exams.
The K-P CM must order an impartial review of the PMS examination and evaluation process, and, if possible, have the papers independently rechecked.
Javeria Shah
Abbottabad
