The new information given on the official website of Staff Selection Commission (SSC) is surprising the candidates. ‘The posts have been canceled due to administrative reasons, sorry for the inconvenience…’ This notice is for Vasanth Kumar and his friends who were waiting for five recruitment exams to be held in the coming months.
Vasant Kumar, a 22-year-old ITI graduate from Bihar, has been preparing for the past one year for the job of a drill operator in the Water Resources Department. A fortnight ago he was shocked, but not surprised, by this notice. He said, ‘This is not a new thing. Good thing it got canceled earlier. If, later on it was canceled after all the formalities, it would have been even more painful. I have many years ahead to try my luck. You see, getting a government job is not that easy.
Kumar says this is an issue students have been facing for decades. Postponement of exams, cancellation of recruitment drives, delay in exam results and pending court cases are some of the hurdles that students have to cross to get their dream job. However, not all candidates are as hopeful as Kumar.
R Karthik Srinivasan, 28, recalls how he missed out on a job as a technical operator with the Central Ground Water Board despite appearing for a skill test in 2017 as the agency canceled the recruitment process in 2019 citing administrative reasons. Had given.
Srinivasan says, “The agency advertised the recruitment again after a year with some other new vacancies. I applied again but in October last year SSC gave a notice informing that the recruitments have been stopped by the user department again citing administrative reasons. Well, after that I decided to go ahead and started working under a private contractor. Now, all my ITI degrees and skilling workshop certificates are useless.
In December last year, Union Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi, in response to a question in the Lok Sabha on cancellation of exams, paper leak and increasing incidents of copying, said that education is a subject in the Concurrent List of the Constitution.
“Thus, matters relating to examinations in schools other than those under the Central Government are governed by the rules and instructions of the respective Examination Boards of the respective State Governments,” the minister said. While queries sent by BLiTZ to various recruitment boards about the number of such cases did not elicit any response. Lakhs of students are facing these uncertainties and are hopeful of a better future.
But why?
Neil Bhatia, who teaches at a coaching institute in northeast Delhi, says that despite having a technical degree, there are very few people for his skills in the private sector. Most of the students pursuing technical degrees from government skill ecosystem come from marginal and remote areas. They are also often weak in interpersonal skills.
Bhatia said, “They have limited vacancies left in Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and other government projects. It is a vicious cycle. Since their training is limited, private companies avoid hiring them. Opportunities for these youth are being severely limited as the government sticks to its disinvestment commitment. The youth often lose five to six years of their life in the hope of cracking these exams.
Dhruv Rathore, an arithmetic teacher who runs a private coaching center in West Delhi, says, “On the one hand, technical exams require a lot of training and certification. On the other hand, there are general clerical staff recruitment exams where students from both technical and non-technical background are eligible.
The lure of government jobs with assured income and other benefits, coupled with limited job opportunities, keep lakhs of candidates waiting for a few hundred vacancies. Students do not shy away from paying exorbitant bribes and using unfair means to clear these exams.
The ‘infiltration’ of technical students in the common clerical examinations has also been discussed in Parliament in recent times. In 2020 Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh informed Parliament in a written reply that in 2017, about 66% of the candidates who passed the Combined Graduate Level Examination (CGLE) were from technical courses like BTech, BSc, BPharma, Management, etc. were students of
‘What is the use of spending lakhs on doing technical courses when you will only get a clerical job or a basic school teacher job,’ asks 27-year-old Vandita Verma, who quit her job with an educational technology company last year and took the Rajasthan Teacher Eligibility Test ‘ This exam was also later canceled as a large number of students were found using unfair means and around 50 people were arrested.
“The main problem is that there is no specific law to deal with incidents of fraud,” says Rathore. The need of the hour is that the Central Government acknowledges the criminal nature of such acts and brings a strict law to clearly deal with cases of fraud to protect the integrity of the recruitment system.
After several cases of paper leaks came to light over the past few years, the Rajasthan government passed the Rajasthan Public Examinations Act, 2022, which provides for stringent punishment including imprisonment of up to 10 years and fine of up to Rs 10 crore.
Earlier, in the budget of 2020-21, the central government set up the National Recruitment Agency as an independent, professional and specialist organization for Rs 1,500 crore to conduct computer-based online Common Eligibility Test (CET) for recruitment to all non-gazetted posts. announced the establishment of Even after three years, the agency is waiting to start.
Troubled by all this, Neil Bhatia says, ‘The government does not want to face the reality. You’re not going to stop millions of people from applying for a few hundred jobs, nor are you going to stop fraud when the root cause is a lack of jobs, especially jobs with social security. Now the time has come that the government should amend both technical and non-technical courses so that after spending thousands of rupees, students are not forced to appear for clerical exams.
Meanwhile, students like Kumar and Srinivasan are forced to work for meager wages under private contractors, despite having the necessary skill training certificates. Harjit Lamba, 48, who runs a motor mechanic workshop in Delhi’s Mayapuri, has about 23 helpers. Of these, four are ITI graduates.
Lamba laughs and says, ‘He has no knowledge. I don’t need theory. I have to complete my work. Also, they demand more salary as they have invested for the certificate. Why should I pay them extra, when they all know that I have taught them, instead they should pay me the training fee.’
