TSPSC Group-1 aspirants protest ‘unfair’ evaluation by 'inexperienced' lecturers

Hyderabad: Group-I aspirants have criticised the TSPSC’s evaluation process as ‘fundamentally flawed’ and unfit for a prestigious examination like the Group-1 services and appealed to the State government to conduct a proper revaluation of their papers.

The Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC) on Sunday released the Group-I Mains exams general ranking list (GRL), with a woman from Hyderabad topping the list in the general category.

Lack of expertise and experience in UPSC-standard evaluation

The aspirants have claimed that by assigning the evaluation of highly competitive and nuanced answer scripts to degree college lecturers, the commission equated the Group-1 examination to semester-level assessments, which require significantly lower standards of evaluation.

The TSPSC’s reliance on inexperienced evaluators led to inconsistent, arbitrary and unreliable marking. Deserving candidates who demonstrated a deep understanding of the subject matter were unjustly penalised due to the evaluators’ inability to recognise and reward their efforts appropriately.

Speaking to NewsMeter, one of the Group-I aspirants, Chandrasekhar Reddy, alleged that the degree college lecturers and aided college lecturers involved in the evaluation process lacked experience in UPSC-standard evaluations.

The evaluation process appeared to have followed a lenient marking pattern, akin to semester exams in degree colleges, rather than adhering to the rigorous standards expected in competitive examinations like those conducted by UPSC.

Negligence by assigning Group-1 evaluations to long-retired professors

Shockingly, some evaluators were even retired professors who had left active teaching 20 years ago, raising serious doubts about their familiarity with contemporary evaluation standards.

For instance, out of 1,656 candidates who appeared for the exams in centre codes 18 and 19 (Koti Women’s College), 74 were selected in the top 500, while only 68 out of 18,077 candidates who sat for the exams in 25 centres figured in the top 500.

“How can 74 candidates from one college centre secure ranks in the top 500 ranks? We feel there is a discrimination in the evaluation and results,” Reddy said.

Neither scaling nor uniformity followed

Reddy further said that the UPSC standards limit the marks in civil services to a maximum of 50 per cent to 55 per cent. However, in the TSPSC Group-1 evaluation, some candidates were awarded marks ranging from 70 per cent to 80 per cent, as if they were scoring in semester exams.

The evaluation process for Group-1 was deeply flawed, as it lacked both scalability and uniformity. The assessments were conducted by different sets of subject experts who were irrelevant to the field, resulting in significant harm to deserving candidates.

For instance, in the Telangana Movement papers, the assessment was conducted by two different sets of evaluators—degree college lecturers in History and Political Science—leading to a lack of uniformity in evaluation criteria. This inconsistency resulted in unfair and uneven grading of the answer scripts.

Similarly, the evaluation of the essay paper was conducted by degree college lecturers from various departments such as Chemistry, Economics and Political Science, further compounding the issue of inconsistent assessment standards. Due to their lack of familiarity with the style of essay writing, a candidate who scored 139 marks in the essay paper in the Civil Services exam ended up losing marks here, securing only 53 marks.

While the UPSC employs language experts for General Essay evaluation, here, degree college lecturers from departments like Chemistry, Economics and Political Science were assigned to complete the task of evaluation. Another glaring issue is that the Society paper was evaluated by a mix of a few Sociology faculty members and predominantly Political Science lecturers from degree colleges. This uneven distribution of evaluators with varying levels of expertise in Sociology further exacerbated the flaws in the evaluation process.

Students who provided sociologically grounded answers did not receive the marks they deserved with Political Science evaluators. Additionally, the Environment section of Paper IV was evaluated by degree college lecturers in Economics, which raises concerns about the appropriateness of their expertise in assessing specific subject matter.

Arbitrary third evaluation process

The TSPSC introduced a third evaluation process for Group-1 examination answer scripts where there was more than 15 per cent discrepancy between the first two evaluations. However, this process was neither mentioned nor disclosed in the notification, rendering it arbitrary and procedurally irregular.

The third evaluation was conducted by the same set of evaluators who participated in the first two evaluations, and only the marks from the third evaluation were considered final. This raised serious concerns about the standardisation and fairness of the evaluation.

The arbitrary decision to take only third evaluation marks undermined the credibility of the examination and compromised the merit-based selection process.

Excessive workload on evaluators leading to fast and shoddy evaluation

Reddy also alleged that the evaluation process was conducted at breakneck speed, placing an unreasonable burden on evaluators to assess an enormous volume of answer scripts in an impossibly short timeframe.

Evaluators were assigned 120 papers to assess. This was particularly overwhelming for subjects like Science and Technology, Geography, Indian Society, Constitution and Governance, Data Interpretation, etc.

Flawed evaluation of Telangana Movement paper leading to unjust low marks

The Telangana Movement is a deeply significant and unique historical struggle that embodies the aspirations, struggles and emotions of the people of Telangana. Despite students providing well-reasoned, emotionally resonant and factually accurate answers based on their personal experiences and understanding of the movement, they were awarded disproportionately low marks.

Furthermore, among the evaluators assigned to assess the Telangana Movement papers, many were professors from Andhra Pradesh and degree college lecturers belonging to the Andhra region. Given the sensitive and region-specific nature of the Telangana Movement, the evaluators needed to possess a deep understanding of the movement’s spirit and nuances.

Systemic discrimination against Telugu medium candidates

Telugu medium candidates scored 100-150 marks lower across all papers compared to English medium peers, despite having equivalent content quality.

The TSPSC evaluation process faced significant challenges due to the allocation of English medium answer scripts to faculty members who don’t have the necessary proficiency in English and who do not even teach in English. This discrepancy in the evaluation process has led to inconsistencies in marking.

Degree college and aided college lecturers awarded marks based on language, handwriting style rather than content merit, disproportionately penalising Telugu medium candidates.

This systemic bias in valuation undermines the credibility of the examination. No Telugu medium candidate secured top ranks, effectively barring them from top posts—a clear case of indirect discrimination.

“TSPSC’s flawed approach not only compromised the quality of evaluation but also devalued the sanctity of the examination, rendering the results unfit and unreliable. Such a flawed evaluation process has caused irreparable loss to true aspirants, depriving them of their rightful opportunity to secure positions based on merit,” Reddy said.