Esteemed Editor,

While the debate over the 80:20 ratio in Arunachal Pradesh’s state competitive examinations continues to dominate public discourse, a far more insidious inequity quietly undermines the integrity of the APPSCCE — the complete absence of moderation or scaling of optional subject marks.

The optional papers, carrying 500 marks (two papers of 250 each), are supposed to offer candidates a level playing field. The results of APPSCCE 2024, however, revealed a stark and troubling discrepancy. Optional subjects such as Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science, Agriculture, Anthropology, Public Administration, Economics, Botany, etc. recorded significantly high average marks, while candidates who chose Sociology, Geography, and Political Science & International Relations (PSIR) etc. received considerably lower marks in comparison. This wide gap — across subjects of equivalent weightage — makes it evident that what was being measured was not just candidate performance, but also the varying standards of examiners across disciplines.

Candidates who scored high in their optional subjects deserve every bit of their success — they performed well, and their marks reflect that. But the concern is not with them. The concern is with those equally capable candidates in other optional subjects who also performed well, yet did not receive marks that truly reflected their effort and ability — not because they wrote poorly, but because the examiners assessing their papers operated on a different and stricter standard.

This is where the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission has fallen short. In the absence of any statistical moderation or scaling mechanism, examiner subjectivity goes unchecked. The result is that a candidate’s final rank is shaped not just by how well they performed, but by which optional subject they chose — an element entirely outside their control.

Equally important is the need for proper orientation and standardisation of the examiners appointed to evaluate these papers. The Commission must ensure that the teachers and academics selected to check answer scripts are of comparable expertise and experience across all subjects. A structured orientation process before the Mains would help align marking standards and significantly reduce the kind of examiner-to-examiner variance that currently disadvantages sincere candidates.

This issue receives little public attention because it does not cut across all communities uniformly. But the absence of noise does not diminish the injustice. The goal of moderation is not to pull down those who scored well — it is to ensure that those who also deserved high marks actually receive them.

With the Preliminary Examination scheduled for September 6, and the Mains still approximately three to four months away, the Commission has a meaningful window to act. I urge the APPSC to introduce subject-wise moderation or percentile-based scaling for optional marks, and to put in place a rigorous examiner standardisation process before the Mains — in line with best practices followed by the UPSC and other state commissions.

I also call upon civil society, student organisations, and legislators of Arunachal Pradesh to take cognisance of this silent but deeply damaging inequity.

Yours sincerely,

An Aggrieved Aspirant