“The main Examination is intended to assess the overall intellectual
traits and depth
of understanding of candidates rather than merely the range of their information and memory. The
nature and standard of questions in the General Studies papers (Paper II to Paper V) will be
such that a well-educated person will be able to answer them without any specialized study. The
questions will be such as to test a candidate’s general awareness of a variety of subjects,
which will have relevance for a career in Civil Services. The questions are likely to test the
candidate’s basic understanding of all relevant issues, and ability to analyze, and take a view
on conflicting socio-economic goals, objectives and demands. The candidates must give relevant,
meaningful and succinct answers.”
A very crucial sentence above is about “questions…. which will have
relevance for a career
in Civil Services”. It stands to reason that an experienced IAS officer would be best suitable to cull
out the portions to be emphasised upon while developing teaching-learning material, actual teaching,
coaching, mentoring and guiding a coaching institution to meet this aspect of UPSC’s requirement. With
this concept in mind, HIA will use a retired IAS officer as a full time mentor, a full-time resource and
course director. Whereas the UPSC demands on the candidate are very heavy but also possible to be
addressed. It’s requirements of “overall intellectual traits”, “depth of understanding of candidates
rather than merely the range of their information and memory”, “well-educated person”, “general
awareness of a variety of subjects”, “understanding of all relevant issues”, “ability to analyze”, and
“take a view on conflicting socio-economic goals, objectives” will require a well-balanced 360 degrees
development of the candidate’s knowledge, personality analytical abilities etc. The training or coaching
cannot remain limited to mere textbooks, guides, notes but will have to be an optimum mix of lectures,
use of images, animations, videos, case studies, group discussions and exercises. For this also, the
ex-IAS officer Course Director will ensure development of the right teaching-learning material,
designing the most suitable coaching course, creating the environment for 360 degrees development, and
also ensure training and mentoring of the faculty to equip the students as per needs of the UPSC. Most
of the existing coaching institutions use academia for their faculty and very few have IAS supervisors
involved in teaching or mentoring. Therefore, this will be a USP for HIA. Further, HIA intends to ensure
stress on concept and basics-based learning, correlation with daily life occurrences to enable easier,
quicker but longer understanding, and prevention of rote learning. Although the exams (whether UPSC CSE
or MPPSC CSE) follow the same stages of Prelims, Written Mains and Mains Interview, any preparation
would have to deliberately prevent any compartmentalisation of the three stages. Any meaningful
preparation aiming to qualify eventually will have to ensure seamless integration for the three stages.
Similarly, although there is a big difference in the UPSC and other State Civil Services examinations,
preparation of the foundation for all such examinations will be similar. It’ also essential to
understand the need for teaching in Hindi in the context of the state of Madhya Pradesh and other
neighbouring states. HIA will have a deliberate bilingual policy which will necessarily ensure
development of all material and teaching in both English and Hindi. By adopting the strategy mentioned
above, HIA will strive to attain the aim of becoming the best coaching centre in the field in the
country.