Reforms in examination security, stronger digital safeguards, transparent score disclosures, and third-party audits are necessary.
by Dhritee S. Goswami, Guest Commentator
In Guwahati, long after public libraries close for the night, the lights remain on inside private coaching centres along GS Road. Rows of young men and women, many holding postgraduate degrees, sit preparing for examinations that promise not ambition, but stability. In Assam, competitive recruitment exams have become less a ladder of opportunity and more a prolonged waiting room.
As of February 2025, over 21 lakh educated individuals were registered with Assam’s employment exchanges. The figure understates the reality, excluding thousands who never formally register. Against this backdrop, recent departmental recruitment notifications offering a few hundred posts illustrate the stark arithmetic candidates face. Competitive examinations, under such conditions, become exercises conducted under extreme scarcity.
It is within this landscape that the long-running Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) recruitment scandal must be understood. Investigations into the 2013 and 2014 Combined Competitive Examinations uncovered manipulated marks, duplicate answer scripts, and the selection of non-meritorious candidates. The Justice B.K. Sharma inquiry commission documented “widespread anomalies” and recommended scrapping selections from that period to restore institutional integrity.
Former APSC chairman Rakesh Paul, arrested in 2016, was convicted in July 2024 for fraudulent recruitment of Agricultural Development Officers and sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment. Other commission members were also convicted, while dozens of selected candidates, including ACS and APS officers, were arrested, suspended, or dismissed. Yet the case has not reached a clean conclusion.
In June 2025, the Gauhati High Court ordered the reinstatement of 52 dismissed officers, citing procedural violations under Article 311 of the Constitution. The Assam government has challenged the ruling in the Supreme Court, arguing that it undermines confidence in merit-based recruitment. The episode reflects an unresolved tension between procedural safeguards and institutional credibility, a tension experienced not only in courtrooms but by aspirants preparing for current examinations.
For candidates, these developments generate uncertainty beyond syllabus and strategy. When past selections remain legally contested years later, trust in the examination system becomes fragile.
This fragility exists alongside a constrained employment environment. Assam recorded 7.94 per cent GDP growth in 2024–25, among the fastest in the country. The state’s GSDP reached ₹6.43 lakh crore, with rising per capita income and increased infrastructure spending. Yet macroeconomic growth has not translated into proportionate formal employment for graduates.
Private-sector opportunities remain limited, largely concentrated in retail, banking, telecommunications, and services. Manufacturing capacity is modest, while traditional sectors such as tea, petroleum, and agriculture offer limited expansion in white-collar roles. For graduates in humanities, commerce, and increasingly even sciences, government employment emerges not as one option among many, but as the primary route to middle-class security.
The cost of waiting accumulates quietly. A typical aspirant may spend six or more years cycling through prelims, mains, interviews, and age limits, often underemployed or financially dependent. Families invest heavily in education with delayed returns. Multiplied across thousands, the social cost becomes evident: human capital remains locked in preparation rather than productive deployment.
According to official data, over 33 lakh people in Assam are registered as unemployed, including 7.29 lakh graduates and more than one lakh postgraduates. While labour surveys indicate declining unemployment rates, these figures largely reflect informal and self-employment. They do not resolve the structural mismatch between higher education output and formal sector absorption.
The persistence of this mismatch explains the continued expansion of the coaching industry, even as vacancies decline. Coaching centres thrive not on optimism, but on scarcity. Preparation itself becomes a parallel economy, sustained by families investing in increasingly uncertain outcomes.
Reforms in examination security, stronger digital safeguards, transparent score disclosures, and third-party audits are necessary. The Public Examinations Act of 2024 proposes national standards that may reduce vulnerabilities. Yet safeguards alone address symptoms rather than the underlying pressure.
More durable solutions lie in diversifying pathways to stability: industry-linked apprenticeships, skill certification with market value, district-level startup ecosystems, and limited lateral entry into public service. Assam has made some progress, with over 1,400 DPIIT-recognised startups and the creation of a ₹200-crore venture capital fund. Scale and regional reach, however, remain limited.
The waiting rooms remain full because alternatives remain uncertain. Until government employment becomes one respectable option rather than the singular marker of success, the pressure that distorts institutions will persist. Competitive examinations will continue to carry not just aspiration, but the weight of an entire generation’s expectations.
Perhaps the question is not how to make the queue move faster, but whether the queue itself represents the right model.
About the author ~
Dhritee has tried other cities and cuisines, but nothing beats her mom's home cooking — a hill she's willing to die on. Armed with her parents' advice to never lose her financial footing and a belief that education is basically prescription lenses for reality, she spends her time connecting dots other people don't see. She's convinced that learning isn't just about getting ahead, it's about learning to actually look around.
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TAGS: government employment is one option, fragility exists alongside a constrained employment environment,
six-plus years are wasted satisfying government requirements, unresolved tension between procedural safeguards, exams are not a ladder of opportunity
