For and against increase in CSS exam age limit

ISLAMABAD: Top civil servants have described the two-year increase in the upper age limit of candidates appearing in the Central Superior Services (CSS) examination as a retrogressive step.

Planning, Development and Reforms Minister Ahsan Iqbal, however, says the decision will benefit thousands of aspirants. As the federal cabinet decision taken last month, the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) has just issued the required notification raising the age limit, which will be applicable to the candidates, applying for the next CSS examination to be held early next year.

Senior bureaucrats said that the Pakistan civil service is already aged. “Will the civil servants get more pragmatic and malleable and less idealistic, risk taking, daring and innovative now?” one of them asked on condition of anonymity.

He said the average age of federal and additional secretaries is 58 to 59 years. Because of this fact, the civil service at the top is devoid of initiative and drive. The new measure will make even induction level less progressive and more about status quo.

“In our case it is hardly one to two years, which many secretaries have to serve and that they spend pursuing allotment of plot and preparing pension papers,” the bureaucrat said. He said that in Singapore which has one of the best civil service in the world, officers become secretaries at the federal level at the age of 40 to 42. In India, the secretaries get tenure of seven to eight years.

As per the Estacode, the official pointed out, officers should be promoted to grade 21 which is additional secretary after 21-year service whereas presently bureaucrats are still in grade 20 after 30 years.

According to the Estacode, good officers should be secretaries after 23-24 years of service whereas currently officials are becoming secretaries after 32-33 years. Therefore, the new decision will not serve any positive purpose. Crux of civil service reform is performance management, which is missing.

The official said that in private sector, people become CEO before 40. In progressive societies, by 35-40 professionals are CEOs, tenure professors, secretaries and ministers. In the case of Pakistan’s civil service, the new recruitment will now be done till 33 years of age.

Another bureaucrat said that the promotion is being litigated for the last six years, when the government or the FPSC did not promote poor performers and officers with bad reputation. They agitated before higher judiciary and got relief because the law to promote best of best is not there.

Courts ruled that criterion adopted for promotion and supersession is not provided in law. As a result of the litigation, even top class officers are getting retired without promotion, the civil servant said. Rather than doing substantive legislation to institutionalize performance management, cosmetic measures like the present one would not work, he believed.

He said if government would legislate and make promotion subject to performance, character, conduct and antecedents, all dead wood and bad eggs will be weeded out and will not get relief from any court. The present move will leave civil service worst off and will take out whatever little spark, initiative, innovation and idealism young civil servants had.

A senior bureaucrat said: Catch them young, groom them well, have a system of reward and punishment and give them predictable career path and you will get a good civil service. According to the FPSC notification, the age limit has been increased to 30 years from 28 years for all fresh CSS candidates except those belonging to the scheduled caste and Buddhist community, whose upper age limit has also been raised to 32 from 30 years.

As per Rule 3 (ii) of CSS Competitive Examination Rules, these aspirants are required to produce a certificate to be issued by Political Agent/District Coordination Officer/ District Magistrate in support of their claim. 

They also include candidates belonging to the recognized tribes who are permanent residents of the specific areas and whose families have been living there. Such candidates must attach a certificate to the effect. Once a date of birth has been claimed by a candidate and accepted by the FPSC for the purpose of admission to an examination, no change will be allowed at a subsequent examination or selection.

Ahsan Iqbal said that in India, Bangladesh and several other countries, the upper age limit of such aspirants is 30 years, which had also been the case in Pakistan, but it was lowered by two years by General Pervez Musharraf without any cogent rhyme or reason.

He argued that there has been radical demographic change in Pakistan, which necessitated the upward revision in the age limit. Young population has swelled; more students are now getting higher education; and the study years of bachelors’ degree have been enhanced from two to four years in most institutions, he said.

The minister said that the trend of doing Master’s has also gone up among young people. The increase in the age limit will attract more qualified people to the prestigious service, he said and added that the governance challenge has undergone a fundamental change as per the world experience.

More importantly, he said, the raise will attract youth from the backward areas and poor families. In their cases, he believed, they generally can’t continue their studies at a stretch because of their peculiar financial conditions. Mostly they have to break their studies and work to earn something at different levels, which results in enhancing their age till their studies are completed. They conclude their studies in bits and pieces, he said.