Aspirants what are your views for these CSS reforms regarding subject changes? Are you accepting these happily or not?
Even I will have to study new subjects of 400 marks, but I am happy for these reforms which have done first time after 1981.

Reforms are always better but they should've intimidated at least 1 year before announcing new policies.

agreed..it will bring positive changes in the examination system

I also agree with these reforms ,i think it is a positive step takes by FPSC after 34 year

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It would be more fantastic if the respective commision had included some more technical subjects.

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The world is moving fast, so are the states and their policies. Sir Jamal, you know it better than anybody else being in FSP group. Woefully, the reforms have been made after 34 years.

I will agree with everyone else here that FPSC should have informed us a year and a half before as aspirants start their preparation in advance of one year.

These new reforms have closed all the doors of cramming and the new syllabus introduced demands more analytical abilities.

The syllabus must be concise instead of recommending a large number of books. Because at our stage, the aspirants cannot make a strong decision upon the selection of books.

The concept of scoring-nonscoring subjects must come to an end with the introduction of analytical based papers.

The optional subjects must be grouped wisely; non tech subjects in one group and pure physical sciences in another group. Infact, all the subjects must be from social sciences as the duties of bureaucrats is to make policies not the high tech inventions. Although the minimum necessary scientific knowledge is covered in General Science and Ability.

For grooming as soon as one becomes aspirants of CSS, subject must be given and opted as per the choice of preferred group like IR and IL for FSP and Public Ad and Public Policy for DMG and Criminology for PSP and so on...

The important aspects in these reforms which is creating problem for the aspirants is the reduction or increase in marks of the subjects. I personally feel every must have a total of 200 marks. Paper A should include only MCQs based on the knowledge given in the books which no analytical questions being asked. It will be a win-win situation for the commission and aspirants. Paper B must be of long question but the must be analytical in nature, examining the candidates analyticall skills necessary during their service.

FPSC should have made this change effective a year later or something, for being just with CE-2016 candidates who had studied per the previous course up til April, 2015.

I agree the same pattern and approach was becoming obsolete. Now eveyone will on new page and start at same point. (y)

Almost all responses here assume that change is always for the positive. I don't think there is anything sacrosanct about 'change'. There are many good changes in the new syllabus - e.g. greater focus on needs of civil servants, current issues in Pakistan etc - but there are some equally dumb ones, e.g.

i) Illogical Subject Combination: Subject combinations do not keep in mind the needs of a potential CSP officer, but only how to make the exam more challenging, e.g. A potential ambassador is protected from being an expert of International Relations and Economics at once, s/he couldn't have studied the 2 subjects at least at the CSS level. This is a move hard to draw any sense out of.

ii) Subjects have been arbitrarily classified into 200, 100, 50 (Agriculture), and even 40 (General Abilities). Asinine! Does FPSC think that candidates will have to study less for a 40 marks subject in a 'competitive exam'. That's simply not possible! Go through All Basic GRE type maths and reasoning and at the end of the day you get 40 marks for the whole exercise - compared to 75% in the GRE. Similarly, 200 marks subjects have been reduced to 100 marks without cutting down on syllabus. Some subjects now offer huge value for minimal effort, e.g. Journalism, while others are a disaster if compared to the effort they require, e.g. Indo Pak History.

iii) No Sample Papers issued. There are always sample papers issued when such changes to patterns of assessment are made anywhere in the world which make the exam foreseeable for the candidate. Issuing syllabi is not enough in itself.

My personal feeling is that I am happy that I would sit a reformed - better - CSS exam, but to simply feel good is not to overlook the weaknesses in the reform process.

The reforms so suddenly introduced by fpsc can yield the desired results provided that certain odd trends be done away with, such as high low scoring enigma, etc etc. From my point of view, the regrouping of the optionals will equalize all aspirants having whatever background with whatsoever fied, engineering, medical, arts etc..What happened earlier was that the science students esp. drs had upper hand, in opting for optionals, consequently they fared on well, securing top positions each year. This, i believe, was an encroachment upon us, the people having social sciences background.
This change will obviously go a long way unless fpsc gives up its bizarre criteria of high and low score of markings subjects. Regards...Farrukh Aziz

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