Assam's youth vs competitive exams

Cracking various all-India competitive examinations in order to get jobs in Central government services, departments and organizations has remained a major issue in Assam for decades. While youth from smaller states like Mizoram and Nagaland do well in various all-India competitive examinations, Assam has remained almost at the bottom. The worst has been in the Civil Services, Defence Services, Railways and public sector banks. Such is the situation that Assam will be seeing a long period when there will be no Assamese to be appointed as Chief Secretary and Director General of Police of the state. Same is the case in the Defence Services, with not even one Assamese officer is getting close becoming the Chief of the Army, Navy or Air Force. There is also a very poor presence of persons from Assam in the Allied Services, where officers are selected from the Combined Civil Service examination conducted by the UPSC. The Defence forces, paramilitary forces and Railways are also major employers, and the presence of persons from Assam is poor in these sectors as well. It is welcome news that Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has announced his government's decision to set up eight training-cum-coaching centres for local aspirants across the state. At present there are a number of private coaching centres in Guwahati and other cities which impart training and coaching for the central Civil Services. But, going by the selection list of UPSC of the past ten years, one can very assertively say that these private centres have failed despite charging exorbitant fees from the aspirants. Though no study has been conducted as yet to identify the reasons behind the poor presence of candidates from Assam in the result sheets of various all-India competitive examinations, yet one can say that the contribution of educational institutions –schools, colleges and universities – of the state have contributed practically nothing to motivate and inspire young people to develop an urge to go for such competitions. A survey will probably reveal that most high school headmasters and college principals of Assam do not have a fair idea about the all-India competitive examinations. Given this scenario, there is probably also a need to train high school and college teachers to provide career counselling to the young people so that the latter develop a competitive mind and spirit from an early stage.