Aspirants pick holes in new KPSC syllabus, slam outdated portions

A section of KAS aspirants fears that the new syllabus for the KPSC examinations might not help improve their situation in any way, but in fact be detrimental to the exam results.

Recently, the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms put up the draft rules of the Karnataka Recruitment of Gazetted probationers (Appointment by Competitive Examinations) Amendment Rules, 2014, inviting objections. The whole exercise was taken up in the wake of KPSC recruitment scams. Based on the P C Hota Committee recommendations, a new syllabus was drafted.

In a letter addressed to the Principal Secretary of DPAR (October 9), aspirants have asked the government to make changes to the syllabus in the interests of students. To begin with, the interview marks are  200 which is more compared to neighbouring states, the candidates have pointed out.

An aspirant requesting anonymity told Deccan Herald, “Interview is very subjective and has scope for bias against a candidate. If they do not reduce the weightage given to interview, it will not help the students in any way. In Andhra Pradesh, interview is for 75 marks and in Tamil Nadu it is for 120 marks. We want the government to reduce it in our state as well.”

No reference material

Students have also demanded  that the government reconsider several sections of the syllabus which are either outdated or irrelevant to the examination.

Moreover, for many topics, reference material is not available in Kannada and this would impact the performance of students in the examination.

In addition, part of the curriculum is heavily based on Internet sources and rural students, who do not have access to the Internet, would find it a problem to prepare for these topics, according to the candidates.

The aspirants added, “There are also some topics in agriculture and horticulture for which reference materials are not available anywhere except in agricultural universities. Access to these libraries is not guaranteed.”

Some sections in public administration are based on old theories and are not relevant to modern-day administration.

Instead, the government could add topics like e-governance, which would help candidates get a hang of administration, the candidates said.