New Delhi: Government has decided to conduct the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) from the next year i.e. from 2011. The new examination will replace the current civil services (preliminary) examination (CSE) scheme.
CSAT will be conducted to shortlist candidates for the civil services (main) examination. The exam will be conducted every year for recruiting officers in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), Indian Foreign Services (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS) as well as other elite government services.
As per sources, the proposal for the introduction and implementation of CSAT to replace the existing preliminary civil services examination from 2011 had been approved by the Central government in March, this year. The Centre had also asked the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) to prepare a syllabus for it.
Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State for Personnel, has said that the central government will be soon notifying about the new system of examinations for UPSC, including its syllabus, which is currently being worked out. He also informed that in CSAT, one of the optional subjects which a candidate could have chosen out of 23 optional has been substituted with common paper on aptitude test.
Now, candidates are required to appear for two objective type papers that will lay emphasis on their aptitude for the civil services in addition to their ethical and moral dimension on decision making, according to ministry officials.
In addition, both papers would have an equal weightage of marks and all candidates would be required to give both papers instead of the earlier one common paper on general awareness and one optional paper on any subject of the candidate's choice. The change is only being implemented for the first of three stages of the CSE. Until a panel of experts studies the complete aspects of the whole CSE examination system, the second and third stage of the exam scheme would not be modified.
