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Young people applying for entry-level jobs in Sindh’s bureaucracy have been protesting that only 70 out of over 4,300 of them have passed the exam held by the Sindh Public Service Commission.
They sat ten written papers for the Combined Competitive Examination (CCE), whose shockingly slim number of successful candidates was announced on May 6. This is how assistant commissioners, assistant directors and section officers at Grades 16 and 17 are hired. Lower than 16 is for drivers and clerks hired in the districts. The highest grade is 22. Think chief secretary level.
The SPSC typically passes at least five candidates per seat in its written examinations. However, according to spokesperson Hifzullah Kaka, that doesn’t necessarily apply to the CCE. Nevertheless, the 2024 results still struck protesters as impossible to accept.
Alarm bells started ringing when the detailed marks certificates were uploaded after the results were announced. For instance, the 100-mark optional subject Criminology with a single exam paper was shown as two papers worth 200 marks in the detailed marks certificates. “At first, we thought it might be a mistake,” said Farman Ali, a candidate leading the campaign. “But it wasn’t limited to Criminology. We saw the same issue in Environmental Science as well.” SPSC spokesperson Kaka did not respond to a request for clarification and declined to comment, saying that the matter was in court. When Dawn visited the SPSC on August 5, guards did not permit entry.
