UPSC Exams: Students urge govt to make Mass Comm optional paper in Civil Services

Demands of making ‘Journalism and Mass communication’ as an optional paper in the Union Public Service Commission Exams has started gaining momentum. Students who complete their graduation in Mass communication often face difficulties as it can’t be opted in the civil service exams. Hence, journalism students are left with no option but to switch over to other subjects to appear in the UPSC tests.

However, it becomes a daunting task for the student to switch over to other subjects after having invested enough years pursuing journalism.

Students are of the view that journalism has been taught for last 77 years in different universities in the country and internationally, the subject has been in academics for 110 years. In India, 39 out of 43 universities do have these courses in their curriculum, which means 91 per cent of India’s total varsities offer this course.

In state universities too, a huge number of students are enrolled in various streams of mass communication. There are other institutes totally dedicated at Journalism and Mass Communication courses which include; Jamia Milia Islamia, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism & Communication etc.

Aaj Tak report quotes a student saying, “If UPSC has kept 48 subjects in the list of optional papers, it also should include one of the most popular courses which is being taught for 77 years.”

The civil services exam is conducted annually in three phases -- prelims, mains and interview -- to select officers for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

Thus, the sub-total of written tests in mains exam is of 1750 marks. After that, there is a personality test of 275 marks. Thus, bringing the grand total to 2025 marks.