Whither merit?

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission is to select suitable candidates for prestigious governments. At present, the ratio of test marks, interview marks and academic record is 45, 25 and 20 respectively. Now the KPPSC is going to amend the selection criteria for candidates. This will be: test marks 30, interview marks 30 and academic record 30. This formula will seriously block the way of thousands of jobless youth. In this way, subjectivity will find its way instead of objectivity, equality, equity and merit.

Improvement and excellence is also possible after getting academic degrees which is why the commission should not only depend on the past of the candidates. The selection formula in the pipeline is against the spirit of merit. In the present setting merit prevails and every candidate gets almost an equal chance. Implementation of the proposed formula will seriously hurt merit.

Usman Ali Khattak

Kohat