The news of two candidates from Nagaland coming out in flying colours after cracking the UPSC Civil Service Exams 2021 makes one’s heart swell with pride. Nagaland has been faring pretty bad when it comes to producing students with the calibre to crack the UPSC exams. In 2020, Nagaland had the first candidate to crack the UPSC in thirteen years in the person of Richard Yanthan who became the first Naga IAS officer since 2007 through open competition. This year, Viku L Achumi and Imsennaro Walling have made us all proud and it is hoped that we will see many more candidates like them successfully clearing the premier civil services exams in the future too.
We are particularly proud of our daughter Imsennaro Walling, not just because she is one of us but because she has proved that even a small town girl (or boy) can go on to compete with the best brains in the country. She was born and raised in Mokokchung and did her schooling at Jubilee Memorial School before going to Shillong for her Higher Secondary and then to Delhi for her B. Sc. She worked hard for the exam and has achieved success today. However, without taking away any credit from her, it is felt that her success today was in a way molded at school as a young student. It is here that we should look back and reflect on the quality of education our schools are offering. Certain questions cross one’s mind – like, would she have cracked the UPSC exams had she stayed back and not gone to Shillong? Given the fact that Jubilee Memorial School is affiliated to the ICSE, is the quality of education offered by NBSE inferior? Further, can we claim that our higher secondary schools and colleges have the capacity to produce students who can crack the civil services exams? These are some generalized questions that need to be asked, and answered, to determine just how our educational institutions are faring.
There are a number of factors like parental support and guidance, innate qualities, personality traits inborn or acquired, hard work, perseverance, luck in some measure, etc. apart from the quality of education that one receives that influence one’s performance in competitive exams. It is indeed impossible to zero in on a particular point when it comes to determining how one can successfully perform while appearing for a competitive exam like that of the civil services. Also, educational institutions can at the most prepare or equip the students. Many thousands appear for the civil services exams, year after year, but only a very few succeed. While we congratulate the successful candidates, may we also remember that it is not the end of the road for those who were not quite as successful. As rightly said by Imsennaro, at the end of the day, it is just an exam.