The Bangladesh Public Service Commission (PSC) conducts several important government recruitment exams, including the BCS (Bangladesh Civil Service). It is also responsible for publishing recruitment notices and receiving applications based on the needs of various ministries and departments.
Essentially, through three stages of examinations, preliminary, written, and viva voce, the PSC selects the best candidates and recommends them for appointment.
There is no question regarding the commission’s responsibility or the confidentiality of its overall process. The question, however, is why the PSC does not follow any calendar or fixed timeline for conducting each BCS exam.
Because it does not, recruitment candidates repeatedly face difficulties. For example, at the moment, a large section of applicants for the 47th BCS are protesting. They say the results of their preliminary exam were published on 27 September, but the written exam has been scheduled for 27 November—just two months later.
In other BCS exams, this gap has typically been four to five months or even longer. Candidates cannot understand why there is such haste for this particular BCS. The PSC has not provided them with any satisfactory response. Yet students raising these questions have been beaten multiple times.
The 47th BCS circular was published on 28 November last year. The circular mentioned that the preliminary exam would likely be held in May this year. Later, the exam date was set for 27 June. That, too, was changed, and a new date of 8 August was given. But the preliminary exam was finally held on 19 September.
There were some practical reasons behind these repeated changes. At that time, the written exams for the 46th BCS could not be completed due to protests demanding postponement. Moreover, the viva voce for the 44th BCS was also pending.
The guiding principle for setting this timeline should be to keep each BCS process separate. The recruitment circular would include not only the deadline for applications but also the tentative dates for the preliminary, written, and viva exams.
It is evident that the schedule of one BCS exam is often linked to another. But that does not mean that complications in one or more BCS exams should put other candidates in crisis.
The grievances of 47th BCS applicants are quite justified. This situation would not arise if the PSC set a full schedule in advance and completed the entire process accordingly. The commission itself has acknowledged the need for such a calendar many times, but it has never created one. Doing so could also end the prolonged duration of BCS exams.
The guiding principle for setting this timeline should be to keep each BCS process separate. The recruitment circular would include not only the deadline for applications but also the tentative dates for the preliminary, written, and viva exams. It should even include the probable date for publishing the final list of recommended candidates. The entire process should be planned to finish within one year.
Fifteen days could be allotted between the circular's publication and the application deadline. The preliminary exam could take place two and a half months later. Publishing preliminary results would require about one week. Thus, the first stage could be completed in less than three and a half months.
If the PSC announced the exam and result publication schedule along with the recruitment circular and kept each BCS process running according to that schedule, candidates would have no objections.
After that, the PSC’s task would be to organise the written exam. Candidates selected in the preliminary exam could be given three and a half months to prepare. During that period, the PSC would complete tasks such as preparing and moderating question papers. The written exam itself might take about a month. In total, the written stage could be completed in four and a half months.
Evaluating answer scripts would take roughly another month. Under the current system for script evaluation, it should not take longer. That means the list of candidates who passed the written exam could be published within nine months from the start.
Finally, the viva voce remains. The mark assigned for the 15-minute viva should be reduced to 100 from 200. This exam should be completed within two to two-and-a-half months. Afterward, written and viva scores should be combined to prepare the final merit list.
Publishing this list may take another seven to 10 days. Thus, the final stage could be completed within three months. Altogether, a BCS exam could be completed in less than a year.
The BCS exam process is currently in a tangled state. From the outside, it is difficult to know which exam’s preliminary results have been published, which written exam has been completed, and which viva is ongoing.
Meanwhile, job seekers are frequently protesting—sometimes demanding the postponement of exams, sometimes asking for quicker publication of circulars. If the PSC announced the exam and result publication schedule along with the recruitment circular and kept each BCS process running according to that schedule, candidates would have no objections.
* Tariq Manzoor is a professor at the University of Dhaka