Central Superior Services (CSS) is a competitive examination of Pakistan that is being conducted under the supervision of Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) every year in the month of February. The FPSC announced the written part results of 2019s successful and unsuccessful candidates through a press note assigned by the Director CE Syed Muhammad Ayub Shah on Tuesday, 3 November, 2020. The passing ratio 2.03% of 2020s successful candidates has raised many questions; firstly, on the status of quality education in Pakistan and secondly, the role of expensive CSS academies in providing their sincere guidelines to the students. According to the statistics shown by the FPSC, about 39,630 candidates registered themselves for this competitive examination of 2019, from them total 18,553 candidates appeared in the exam, and regrettably, only 376 candidates could pass the exam, and it seems like pass percentage with respect to the appeared candidates is 2.03%; this is the lowest passing ratio of the successful candidates compared to last two exams held in 2019 and 2018, respectively, as well as the largest number of the appeared candidates in the history of Pakistan. In 2019, the passing ratio was about 2.9% from at least 14 thousands candidates and in 2018, it was 4.79% out of 11,000 aspirants. Such immediate dropping ratio of the passed candidates in 2019 results demonstrates that the FPSC is demanding superior endeavours from the aspirants but the condition is contradictory to it. The statistics and analysis through the CSS DMCs show that the aspirants are failing particularly in the Essay Paper and Optional Subjects. This Essay Paper and the optional subjects are the ‘question mark’ on the status of quality education in Pakistan and the role of CSS academies. Aspirants are told to collect the knowledge, content, and material from books, internet and YouTube and make their own notes. But, they are not told that it is not mandatory to gather a lot of knowledge and content from here and there for the preparation of CSS, but it is necessary to squeeze the collective knowledge into useful material and put those ideas during the paper attempting amid managing the time with correct English. This is what CSS English Paper is demanding from the students, for which, overall failing ratio has increased in this exam. But, things do not end here. Unfortunately, the CSS academies are playing a key role in creating frustrations among the poor students and asking for heavy fees (60,000-70,000) as crash courses as well as preparation of CSS. The academies must provide leniency to the serious aspirants by decreasing their heavy fees. It is the responsibility of the Government of Pakistan to provide the students with relevant knowledge of the CSS Exam at least till graduation. Many students actually do not have a grip on English language and are wasting their precious attempts at availing opportunities to join the bureaucracy of Pakistan. This exam is sensitive from all the exams helding across the country. According to its sensitivity, the aspirants should go through the proper strategy chalked out in the initial days, continuously and consistently.
