SHILLONG: Member of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and renowned historian, Prof David Syiemlieh, on Thursday rubbished the idea that lack of coaching centres in the State was the main reason due to which only a handful of candidates from the State were appearing and emerging successful in the prestigious Civil Service examinations conducted by the UPSC.
“Coaching centres do have an edge over certain things but it is not the answer for a candidate to emerge successful in the Civil Service examination,” Prof Syiemlieh said, adding that hard work and perseverance is the key to success.
In an interaction with the media here on Thursday, the former NEHU Pro Vice Chancellor pointed out that 25 years ago when there were no coaching centres in the State or anywhere else, candidates still managed to make it through these competitive examinations based on their own efforts.
“Coaching centres do help a candidate in various ways like manner of conduct, training and grooming them, but the major part has to be played by the individual only,” he added.
Ruing the fact that a few candidates from the State were sitting for these examinations, Prof Syiemlieh said, “We have not had that many candidates from the states who have made it through the Civil Service examinations in the last few years.”
He, however, expressed ignorance over the reason behind this fall in the number of successful candidates from Meghalaya.
When asked whether the UPSC has any role to play in monitoring the functioning of the State public service commissions in the wake of the various scams unearthed in and around the country, the UPSC member said that according to the Constitution, just like the UPSC, the State Commission is also an autonomous body which functions on its own.
“But the UPSC does assist in some way or the other in ensuring better functioning of the state commissions,” he said, adding that the UPSC handles disciplinary cases of officers of the government of India and other bodies.
Commenting on the burning issue of unemployment in the State, Prof Syiemlieh said that unemployment is a problem which needs to be dealt with by the State Government by putting in place a better procedure of conducting the examinations with a clean selection process.
“There should be a fair system in place to prevent any lapse in the recruitment process to prevent the youth from coming out onto the streets and fighting for their rights,” Prof Syiemlieh said, adding that the youth of the region are very talented and if a better platform is provided they can prove to be very promising.
Prof Syiemlieh also called upon the young graduates to check the UPSC website for a number of opportunities and appealed to them not to direct their attention only to the civil services but also look into various other opportunities.
It may be noted here that Prof Syiemlieh is currently working on a book ‘On the edge of the Empire: 4 British plans for NE India – 1941 and 1947’ which is set to be published very soon. He is also working on the compilation of 15 essays on Christianity and Christian Missions of the North East and is also preparing to put together essays on aspect of Modern History of the Khasi Himas, economic status, Christian Missions, great men and patriots of Khasi land, the title of which will be announced very soon.