CSS in Urdu

After Advocate Saifur Rehman filed a petition, the Lahore High Court directed the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) to conduct CSS Examinations 2018 in Urdu language. The court remarked that due to the shortage of time, it was not able to implement the order for CSS Examinations in 2017 which are due by the end of the current month. In a country where the focus of education from the primary school level till higher education level is in English, the country’s attempt at changing the language of CSS Examinations to Urdu makes little sense. All the reading lists and books recommended by universities for their degree courses and by the FPSC for CSS are written in English by foreign authors. Are the candidates supposed to get an education in English, prepare for CSS through books written in English and then translate all of that into Urdu themselves? In order to carry out this reconstruction, the whole education system should be revamped by converting every existing form of teaching, data and tools from English into Urdu.

The country wants to produce individuals who can compete across the world. Knowing and speaking English – a universal language – is the need of the hour. We should make our preliminary school teaching better rather than turn a relatively better standard exam’s medium into Urdu. The FPCS has positions including the foreign service; how is Urdu ever going to be beneficial for those who are selected for this category? While Urdu is respected, how can someone appear for an examination in that language if he or she hasn’t written or learnt Urdu for 8-10 years? The choice of the language in which the examination should be conducted must lie with the candidates.

Sana Ali Bhutto

Karachi