Cell to train students for competitive exams

R. Krishna Kumar

Specialised coaching is needed to make civil services popular, says Mysore varsity Vice-Chancellor

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Importance will be accorded to civil services examination: V.G. Talawar

‘In urban areas private sector jobs are

preferred to civil services’

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MYSORE: The University of Mysore will soon start a specialised cell to train students appearing for competitive examinations with special thrust on Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and other allied services.

This is likely to give an impetus to students to appear for the civil services examination conducted annually by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

The move comes at a time when representation of the State in civil services such as the IAS and the Indian Police Service (IPS) is perceived to be low.

Vice-Chancellor of the university V.G. Talawar told The Hindu that the cell would be in place in the next 45 days and the university would accord importance to civil services examinations.

“It is my dream to have such a cell, and it should be in place very soon,” he added.

“We need to provide specialised training to our students to make civil services popular,” Prof. Talawar said and added that this would be dovetailed with training students for other competitive examinations as well.

Earlier attempts

“The university made certain attempts to create greater awareness among students about civil services in the mid-1990s when I was the Registrar. During that period several students from the university were selected for the Karnataka Administrative Service posts,” said Prof. Talawar.

The move to start the specialised training cell for all-India services comes in the backdrop of a perceived decline in the State’s representation and dearth of IAS officers from Karnataka. Several Ministers and even senior officials have lamented in the past that the State was poorly represented in the all-India services and hence its influence among policymakers in Delhi was withering.

Reasons

Analysing the reasons for students’ “apathy” towards IAS/IPS examination, Satyanarayana Gowda of Jnanabhutti, a training institute which coaches students for various competitive examination free of cost, said the preference in Karnataka was more towards engineering and medical education and only a few self-motivated students appear for the IAS examination. In contrast, IAS, IPS and other allied services were the most preferred in States such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa from where a bulk of the candidates clear the gruelling examination, he said.

However, S. Bhanuchandran, a strategic business consultant and career counsellor, pointed out that career preference was also rooted in the socio-cultural milieu of the region to which the students belonged.

In urban areas of Karnataka and generally in South India, private sector jobs were preferred and “education” had been reduced to acquiring a medical or an engineering degree, at least among the middle-class people, because of job potential, he said.

So it was in Maharashtra and Gujarat where the economy was more industrialised and vibrant and career openings were plenty in the private sector. But it was not so in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, and this was also reflected in the cream of the student community opting for IAS examination, Mr. Bhanuchandran added.

R. Subramanyam, a faculty at Srinivas Ramanujam Literary and Education Centre, attributed the low representation of Karnataka students in IAS and IPS to difference between syllabus of the State universities and that of Central universities, poor infrastructure and lack of study groups. Elsewhere in the country, IAS coaching was a multi-crore industry, he said.

“Besides, most students are not ready to go through two years of preparation that is needed for IAS examination,” he added.