International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

E-ISSN: 2582-2160   •   Impact Factor: 9.24

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Volume 8 Issue 4
July-August 2026

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The Weight of Expectations: India's Youth Speak: A Case for Reforming the Competitive Examination System

Author(s) Alok Raj
Country India
Abstract Every year, millions of young Indians dedicate the most productive years of their lives to preparing for high-stakes government recruitment and entrance examinations such as the UPSC Civil Services Examination, the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) tests, State Public Service Commission exams, Railway recruitment, and national eligibility tests. The reward structure is extreme: for flagship examinations, fewer than one in five hundred applicants succeed, while the overwhelming majority endure repeated failure across many years. This paper argues that the crisis is not one of individual merit but of systemic design. It examines four interlocking failures—the vanishingly low success ratio and the commercialised coaching economy it sustains; recurrent paper leaks and administrative negligence that void the examinations of credibility; the severe mental-health toll, including a documented rise in student suicides; and the colonial vintage of an examination philosophy built to recruit administrators for the 1850s rather than the twenty-first century. Drawing on government data, peer-reviewed research, and recent policy interventions such as the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, the paper proposes a multi-layered reform agenda spanning legal enforcement, examination technology, structural diversification of entry into public service, a pedagogical shift from rote memorisation to analytical competence, regulation of the coaching industry, and institutionalised mental-health support. The objective is a leak-proof, humane, and efficient recruitment ecosystem consistent with India’s aspiration of becoming a developed nation by 2047.
Keywords competitive examinations; UPSC; SSC; paper leaks; examination reform; student mental health; coaching industry; public service recruitment; India.
Published In Volume 8, Issue 4, July-August 2026
Published On 2026-08-22
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E-ISSN 2582-2160
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CrossRef DOI prefix of IJFMR is 10.36948/ijfmr

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