A decaying civil service
The latest FPSC report concludes that the entire civil service, “is in need of urgent revision and revamping”.
A measure of the poor quality of candidates taking the written test to join the CSS is that a mere 3,467 out of 64,368 applicants passed between 2009 and 2013. STOCK IMAGE
The failure to create and maintain an education system that was fit for purpose was always going to have a long-term knock-on effect. The latest report by the Federal Public Service Commission of Pakistan makes for depressing reading. It concludes that the entire civil service, from top to bottom, “is in need of urgent revision and revamping”. It was noted that the standard of education is deteriorating across all disciplines, which makes it difficult to fill posts, and there are currently 5,776 vacancies in technical and professional ex-cadre posts from grades BS17-22. A significant part of the problem is the connectivity between a poor state education system, which has failed to keep pace with the academic needs of a changing employment environment. The rise of the private sector in education is also creaming off the best and the brightest students, who find little or no attraction in working for a civil service that is defined by its mediocrity.
Many of the most able students seek higher education abroad, and having qualified look for jobs abroad as well, as again there is little attraction in working in a country which has a crumbling infrastructure and a security environment that darkens almost by the day. Little has changed in the civil services since 1981 when the current CSS syllabus was introduced — a time long before the internet and other technological revolutions. Posts also lie vacant because of poor quota mechanisms. A measure of the poor quality of candidates taking the written test to join the CSS is that a mere 3,467 out of 64,368 applicants passed between 2009 and 2013. This is a slow-burn disaster that has developed over 30 years or more and is not susceptible to a quick fix. It is the failure of the education system at primary and secondary levels, coupled with deteriorating academic standards in higher education that has created a climate of second-best — and sliding. Many of the problems of Pakistan today track back to the education crisis, and the recent declaration of an ‘education emergency’ may well be too little, too late.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2015.
Many of the most able students seek higher education abroad, and having qualified look for jobs abroad as well, as again there is little attraction in working in a country which has a crumbling infrastructure and a security environment that darkens almost by the day. Little has changed in the civil services since 1981 when the current CSS syllabus was introduced — a time long before the internet and other technological revolutions. Posts also lie vacant because of poor quota mechanisms. A measure of the poor quality of candidates taking the written test to join the CSS is that a mere 3,467 out of 64,368 applicants passed between 2009 and 2013. This is a slow-burn disaster that has developed over 30 years or more and is not susceptible to a quick fix. It is the failure of the education system at primary and secondary levels, coupled with deteriorating academic standards in higher education that has created a climate of second-best — and sliding. Many of the problems of Pakistan today track back to the education crisis, and the recent declaration of an ‘education emergency’ may well be too little, too late.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2015.