What role does academic background play in the civil service exam?

UPSC is great game leveler in terms of not prioritizing any particular stream or background student. But, the selection of candidates in the last 5 years is suggesting something else. Candidates are being selected in UPSC more or less from the technical background.  However, this is not true at all, People who gets selected in this examination are the one who has overcome many challenges like:

Understand the Demand of the question:

• Understanding the requirement of the examination is the most important thing for this examination. Candidates being selected in this examination are the one who is understanding the demand of the examination. In this examination, anyone can be selected irrespective of the educational background. However, technical educational background are now is being selected more often in this examination due their quick learning capacity.

Challenges for Vernacular Candidates coming from the Rural Background:

• Apart from the lack of level playing field in terms of access to resources the major problem is the language barrier.
• Another problem is CSAT examination format which somehow is tilted in favour of English medium aspirants. This issue has been raised several times by aspirants by Hindi background aspirants.  The main culprit again has been the CSAT Paper II, which includes a topic of English Language Comprehension Skills, however one can argue it for sure that one need to understand at least this much of Basic English language. Although, the questions asked in this section is from Class X level comprehension skills, but it on principle, it still puts Hindi medium students at a disadvantage.
• But, as we move towards IAS Mains Exam, the language challenge faced by aspirants is equally distributed for both English as well as Hindi background aspirants. The examination format of civil services main test is designed in a format, wherein Paper 1 is compulsory qualifying paper based Indian Languages and Paper II is compulsory qualifying paper on the English language. Aspirants from an academic background in English has to go through problems in Paper 1, whereas candidates from Hindi backgrounds face problems in dealing with Paper-II.

Challenge of Humanities Subject:

• It can also be argued that aspirants of science background face many types of problems as they have to opt a subject from social science background as their optional paper (Paper I & II). Optional subjects require them to overcome the obstacle of the optional paper by having clarity of the topic. Candidates has to devise a preparation plan which should not only helps them lay a foundation of the subject but also helps them in developing deeper conceptual understanding about different topics.
• Switching to humanities subject from the original educational background of the graduation subject requires huge effort form the aspirants. Even after all the hard-work and dedication, aspirants from science backgrounds are unable to develop familiar foundation and understanding of the subject matter. Understanding the subject plays a crucial role in the Main examination in which the answers need to have a specific perspective along with short & crisp write-up as well as augmentation with data and facts; inability to do so results into low scores for the candidates.

Academic educational background can be tilted in favour of certain educational background here and there. But, overall we can say that this examination (CSE) provide opportunity to all sorts of educational background aspirants. Clearing this examination require from the candidate to understand the different dimensions of subjects which is the set pattern for all. So, we can say that Educational background has very little effect on clearing UPSC Examination.

These are the three biggest challenges that candidate’s from different backgrounds face during the preparation for IAS Examination. If you have faced any other similar challenges due to academic background, please let us know through your comments below.

Last but not the least. UPSC Examination is the bigger challenge in itself. So, any aspirants saying that they are facing such challenges need to ask themselves, how they can overcome such difficulties and Crack IAS Examination. Obstacles are part and parcel of the life and without obstacles no one can punch above their weight and can come of their comfort zone. So, make sure that ‘you don’t just go through this obstacle but also grow through this obstacle ‘. Only then you can clear this examination. Good luck.