Modi Rojgar Do SSC Exam and Job Vacancies

News Cover: Imagine that you appear for an entrance exam and that you score full marks in that exam. 200/200 But, despite getting full marks, you do not qualify and you do not get selected. Sounds impossible- but something like this happened in our country in the recently published SSC CGL exam results For the past few days, #modi_rozgar_do has been trending on number 1 on Twitter More than 20 lakh students and teachers are participating in this trend.

 In fact, this might be trending on Twitter 

• What is the reason that lakhs of students are angry with the Modi government?

• what does it have to do with the SSC exam results? 

Staff Selection Commission (SSC) is an organization that conducts several examinations to recruit staff for various posts in the various Ministries and Departments of the Government of India One of the major exams conducted by SSC is CGL: Combined Graduate Level Examinations Every year, lakhs of students appear for this exam in the hopes of securing a respectable government job You might have already heard about problems in the SSC CGL exams in the news earlier Two years prior,

 the students were out on the roads protesting because there was a major paper leak in their examinations and allegations of corruption were also leveled against their organization, In fact, if you remember, I had made a video regarding it in 2018 But this time, it’s a different issue. Coming to the present issue at hand- The SSC CGL 2019 Tier 2 exams were held on 15th, 16th, and 18th November 2020 The results of these exams were declared on 19th Feb 2021. And soon after that, the 

• #ModiRozgarDo

 the campaign started So, 

• why was this campaign started?

                         The students allege that there are irregularities in the marking process. The same exam of SSC CGL is conducted in multiple shifts on different days. Specifically, this exam was conducted in three shifts- on 15th, 16th, and 18th November 2020. Now, obviously, the question papers cannot be the same on all three days, 

because the students that appear for the exam on the 15th can leak the paper to those appearing on the 16th and 18th So,, the question papers are different on all three days. But eventually, all these students would be marked on the same ranking scale Selection would be done collectively amongst them But the problem is that there might be a variation in the difficulty levels of the papers on different days Assume that the students that appeared for the exam on 15th Nov had an easy question paper but the paper for those appearing on 16th Nov was slightly more difficult Now,

 All these students need to be evaluated in the same list and same ranking scheme

• How can this be done?

 To deal with this problem, the government came up with the solution of "normalization" for equalizing the results of candidates appearing for different papers on different days After the marks of the students are calculated, there is a proper formula to "normalize" them which is used by SSC This is the exact formula which is based on the average marks scored in a particular shift For example

 if the average marks scored by students in the first shift is 120 marks out of 200 and the average marks scored by students in the second shift is 100 marks out of 200 marks Then you can tell that the paper of the second shift was more difficult in comparison with that of the first shift So, 

the marks will be normalized and marks will be added or subtracted to the score obtained by the students to compensate for the varying difficulty levels Since the average marks scored by students in the second shift was lesser, this means that the paper in the second shift was more difficult Extra marks would be added to the score of these students in order to equalize scores What happened is that in the exam shifts on the 15th and 16th Nov 2020 - the paper had normal difficulty level questions. 

The questions in the shift on 18th Nov 2020, however, were extremely easy as alleged by the students and the teachers alike. In such a scenario, when the difficulty levels vary so greatly, the marks of the students, after normalization, get altered drastically. As alleged by the students- As many as 100 marks have been added for the students that appeared on the 15th/16th. At the same time, around 50-60 marks of the students that appeared on 18th have been deducted In one instance,

 it is also alleged that a student got 200/200 but after his marks were normalized, marks were deducted and he didn’t manage to clear the final cut off Let me explain with an example. A student, X, scored 190 out of 200 and another student, Y, scored 140 out of 200 Both appeared for the exam in different shifts And the cut-off for the exam is 80%, that is, one needs 160 marks to qualify. After normalization, the marks of X would get reduced by around 100 marks and his final marks would be 90 whereas,

 the final marks of Y would be increased by around 50 and be declared at 190! So, Y qualified but X could not When in reality, in all probability, X was a better student because he scored 190/200 Also, many people question the need for tier 2 exams to be held in different shifts on different days. 

• Why can't the exam be conducted on the same day?

it is not that this is not possible SSC holds the pre-exam for around 4 lakh students per day. The number of students in Tier 2 is far lesser than that- so this option is indeed possible But apparently, this is not the only issue with SSC. 

The students point out more glaring issues regarding the functioning of SSC with respect to irregularities Another issue raised by students is that the results are not declared on time by SSC In several cases, the exams were conducted in 2018 but their results have not been declared even until now in 2021 Imagine the plight of the students that appeared for the 2018 exams! They would have hoped that the results would be out by next year and that they'd know whether they had qualified or not But since results are not declared on time,

 they have to appear for the exams next year as well- under stress- under the apprehension that if they might not have qualified last year, they should attempt again The year ends, the results are not declared again and the students think about giving the exam next year as well Just imagine! The results are not being declared for the government exams being conducted! Think about it- We live in a country where pizza is delivered within 30 mins and the election results are out within 7 days,

 but, the results of the exams being held for government posts are not declared for years! The third issue raised by the students is that there is no waiting list in SSC Assume that there are 10,000 vacancies for government jobs. Students appear for the exams and some clear the exam And the top 10,000 students are awarded the government jobs But some out of those 10,000 students do not want to take up the job and opt for something else instead So,

a vacancy arises- For that, generally, a waiting list is issued and the students that are next in rank are awarded that vacant job position But so such provision has been put in place by the government in this case If any vacancy arises, it is left vacant As for the fourth problem- The students allege corruption charges on the SSC As per the students if there is an error in the questions in the paper, the students can challenge this error (question/answer) However, candidates need to pay Rs. 100 per question/answer challenged.

 Many students and teachers allege that SSC has turned this into a money minting business For example, there were as many as 11 such challenges that could be made in SSC CGL 2019-20 Tier 1 Exam Now,

 imagine- more than 9 lakh students appeared for this exam. Assuming that even a fraction of them challenged these 11 questions, imagine how much money can be accumulated! And finally, a fundamental problem raised by the students regarding SSC is that- the number of vacancies keeps dwindling year by year The jobs are getting fewer in number.

• why the #ModiRozgarDo was trending on Twitter

If you compare the vacancies today with those in 2013, then the total number of vacancies in SSC has almost halved! All of this in the backdrop of when the government promised so many jobs when Narendra Modi won the elections in 2014 This is why the #ModiRozgarDo was trending on Twitter The unemployment problem can be seen becoming progressively worse Some students and teachers even blame privatization that the government is undertaking recently In every new budget it comes up with a list of government companies that it seeks to privatize This leads to the drying up of government jobs This is why the #ModiRozgarDo was trending on Twitter The dwindling number of vacancies is a stark example of the unemployment problem So, 

• what are the solutions?

                                 Some problems have extremely simple solutions but the government should have the intentions to fix things Timely conduction of exams, timely declaration of results and timely postings Issuing a waiting list- all of this is not a huge deal Declaring the results of the exam that lakhs of students appear for is not that difficult a job At the same time,

The exams being conducted in different shifts should be conducted on the same day As for the exam held on 18th Nov- a re-exam should be held These are the demands of the students, On the other hand, unemployment is a much bigger issue the solution of which will involve long term strategies by the government It would also require the pressure created by the public. If the public does not raise its voice against issues like unemployment, 

Then the government will never take actions on it Because the government would be all about Mosque and temple issues if the public is happy with that