India News Get -CareerUP Prayagraj Student protest; UPPSC RO ARO PCS Exam 2024 | Standardization
Student agitation continues in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj against the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC). Candidates require to take the Reviewing Officer (RO), Assistant Reviewing Officer (ARO) and Provincial Civil Services (PCS) exams on the same day as before. The students who took to the streets oppose the conduct of exams in several teams and the standardization process using the percentile method. The students even claim that the Commission wants to help its favorites through standardization.
Students make 5 allegations against the Commission regarding standardization and over a shift.
1. Standardization applied brutally and without notice:
According to Naveen Tiwari, one of the students who led the movement in Prayagraj, “there is no mention of normalization and percentile method in the version of UPPSC-2024 released on January 1, 2024.” In this statement , it is stated that the pre-exam merit list will be prepared on the basis of the marks obtained in general studies. Recently, the Supreme Court issued its decision. The sudden implementation of normalization not only goes against the decision of the Supreme Court, but also goes against Article 14 of the Constitution.
Naveen says:
It’s like changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game.
Students demonstrate in front of the commission door
2. The mathematical process of normalization is wrong for human subjects:
The standardization process is used to eliminate differences in the difficulty level of questions. In humanities subjects (non-technical subjects), which question is easy or difficult will not be decided by the statistics formula.
Giving the example of two questions, Naveen says – Suppose two different questions related to Mahatma Gandhi are asked in two articles –
In which year did Gandhiji chair the national convention of the Congress? In what year did Gandhiji raise the slogan “Gandhi may die but Gandhiism will live”?
In these two questions, what formula can decide which question is easy and which question is difficult?
Naveen says the normalization process is implemented in exams like NEET and JEE, but these exams are for admission to higher colleges. And after passing the UPPSC exam, they directly become official officers. Both cannot be weighed on the same scale. The Civil Service Commission of no state in the country implements standardization in human subjects. Even in UPSC this is not applicable.
3. UPPSC is unable to implement standardization:
Naveen tells that UPPSC used to release the pre-exam answer key. If candidates got a question wrong, they would send them the correct answer. Each year, 7 to 12 questions were removed from the journal. After that, the revised answer key was released. It was a transparent system, now abandoned.
After the PCS-J exam result 2024 was declared, candidate Shravan Pandey had filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court alleging exchange of his paper. After this, the High Court had ordered the UPPSC to submit the answer sheets of six questions of the petitioner before the court on June 5, 2024. In July, the Commission had admitted before the court that 50 copies were altered during the PCS-J 2024 Mains exam. After this, measures were taken against many employees and managers of the Commission.
4. The UPPSC cites the shortage of exam centers as an excuse to increase the teams:
The candidates striking against the Commission claim that there are a total of 75 districts in Uttar Pradesh and the exam is being conducted in only 41 districts. If the intentions of the UPPSC were good, the exam could have been conducted in a single day and in a single shift. Before this, the exam was always conducted in a single team.
Naveen says UPPSC’s argument that the exam with more than 5 lakh candidates will be held in more than one shift is also wrong because as per the instructions of the Uttar Pradesh government, the exam of the ‘UPPSC is a specific category exam and the specific category exam will be conducted with 5 lakh candidates exempted from the above rules.
5. Examination in two shifts will increase the risk of paper leakage, the case will drag on in court:
Candidates claim that this year, the recruitment of Uttar Pradesh Police constables was conducted in several shifts. His paper was leaked. It is also important to note that the February 11, 2024 RO question paper was leaked from the printing press and not from the exam center. Talking about the lack of testing centers without improving it is like treating the brain of a stomach disease. According to Naveen, it is luck that will play a role in the standardization process, and not the hard work of students. Due to standardization, a candidate who obtained fewer points during one team can obtain a place on merit in the final result, while selecting a candidate who obtained more points during the second team can be stopped. With this, candidates will challenge the exam result in court.
Commission ready to consider candidates’ suggestions on percentile method
Commission Secretary Ashok Kumar said:
Our guidelines are that henceforth the centers will be established only in government and aided colleges. We conducted a survey in all districts of the state. We did not have enough centers to conduct the exam in one day. In such a situation, we had to take a decision to conduct the exam in two shifts in 41 districts. It was not possible to take the exam in one day.
Regarding the allegations regarding the implementation of standardization, Ashok Kumar says:
We had constituted a committee headed by the former chief statistician of the Government of India. Experts suggested the percentile method, which we adopt. We went and talked to students several times and told them that if you find a method that is better than our percentile method, please suggest it to us, we are willing to adopt it.
We asked Ashok Kumar about the students’ allegation that there may be an attempt to benefit their preferred candidates using the normalization process. Commenting on this, Ashok Kumar said, “Our process follows Article 14. There is no favoritism of any kind there. The entire examination system is based on a computer system. Each role number is coded. No one knows which copy of which registration number belongs to which person.
We also requested that the standardization process not be adopted in any further review of the commission. There is a difference between exams like NEET and UPPSC exams. Ashok says this process is based on government guidelines. The Commission adopts the percentile method based on suggestions from experts. We adopt the percentile method only for the benefit of students.
Can the exam be canceled due to student protests?
Naveen Tiwari says:
The chairman of the commission, Sanjay Shrinet, is said to be out of town, although he is present here. He doesn’t want to meet the students. Our protest will continue until the Commission reconsiders more than one shift.
The students are adamant about their demand to meet Sanjay Shrinet.
Commission Secretary Ashok Kumar said:
The entire review process progresses based on the Commission’s rules and policies. The Commission adopted this system solely in the interest of the candidates and for the quality of the examination. We nevertheless solicited suggestions from students. We are ready to review them. Whatever questions are submitted to the Commission, it studies them in depth and resolves them.
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