I agree with the writer only to the extent that sometimes only sometimes the proper allocations are not assigned and that the academies have made it into a roaring business, by helping candidates cut corners. Although a majority of the probationers I know and others on this forum don’t go to academies and if they do it’s only for a bit of guidance.

The Common Training Program also assists in creating an atmosphere of unity and teaching of work ethics.

As for regional subjects, they surely are necessary, talk of bias must be ignored and a fact must be acknowledged that regional subjects-which are usually ignored in regular academics-are given their due recognition. Getting accustomed to ones regional language is an advantage and not a loss. Many of the aspirants including me never have studied regional languages. After selecting it for CSS i've started reading poetry in Pushto. I consider it a gain.

The proposal of the writer to categorize the groups and assign an additional subject to each one is seemingly irrelevant. He further proposes to restrict a candidate to a certain category in a given year. Take for instance the second category that he mentions i.e. Railways, Postal, Information and Office Management Group; how many candidates would choose this category as their top priority; maybe 50 in total. Other than that these ‘additional papers’ are taught to respective groups during the Specialized Training Program. The training at the Civil Services Academy is quite adequate for instance DMG officers go through revenue laws, penal codes, taxations, public finance etc in their Specialized Training Program all taught by scholars/senior officers.

The problem arises when the majority of the candidates will in their first chances opt for the Foreign Services Category and the DMG/Police category after that the Income Tax/Customs category leaving even weaker or only job desperate candidates to the other category especially the Railways/Postal. This will further ruin these already weak groups of the CSS services groups. The commission would in turn have to raise the limit of chances to at least 8 or 12 depending on the number of chances allowed per category. Also certain groups-like DMG, Police and Customs don’t need functionally specialized candidates but instead require extrovert and bold people.

Flaws are there no doubt, like the increased dependence on the written result, in turn the psychological assessment taken before the interview must be given due importance in judging a candidate’s suitability for certain groups. The interview too must carry more marks than only 300.

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A fool can ask a wise man more questions than he can answer....