THIS is with reference to Hussain Nadim’s article ‘Civil Service in decline’ (Aug 27). He is right in saying that “there is no way for a critical and analytical thinker to pass these (Civil Service) exams.”

The basic reason for it is our abysmal education system which prompts students to depend on numerous guides and solved question papers. Owing to which CSS examinations have mainly become a game of numbers. Candidates don’t seem to be concerned about raising their intellectual taste or worth.

The great harm this faulty system of education has done to the nation is that today the ‘intellectual’ in the Civil Service is undergoing a gradual extinction.

Today’s civil servants couldn’t be deemed as intellectual descendents of the former ICS and CSP officers who used to be intellectual giants due to their vast studies.

Charles H. Kennedy, in his brilliantly authored treatise ‘Bureaucracy in Pakistan’, was also grieved over the sharp intellectual decline of our bureaucrats. According to him, the post-independence Civil Service of Pakistan ceased to produce men of intellectual calibre like ICS officers of the colonial era.

He further went on writing that instead of focusing on their intellectual grooming, the Pakistani brand of civil servants seems obsessed in pursuing other myopic goals like postings, perks and privileges. This makes them ineffectual in comparison to their foreign counterparts who are well-read and in a better position to provide the intellectual input for the policymaking framework.

Mr Nadim is right in saying that ‘Pakistan desperately needs to restructure and refine its bureaucracy by attracting leading intellectuals.’

This is a timely recipe for the assurance of an effective bureaucracy and good governance in Pakistan. But it can’t be achieved unless and until the FPSC is willing to develop an update examination structure which prefers widely-read individuals conversant with many facets of knowledge to those exposed to a mere constricted curriculum and shortcut measures.

We certainly have to care for the best minds of our society. Otherwise our Civil Service is prone to become the victim of Honore de Balzac’s scathing definition: “Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.”

SHAHID NAYYAR Lahore