At least 385 graduates will be left without jobs

Exam: Of the 130 civil engineering graduates who sat for the Bhutan Civil Service Examination (BCSE) only 14 graduates obtained the required 50 percent and above to qualify for the civil service this year.

Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) officials said that this was one of the worst performances to date.

RCSC had earlier announced the availability of 37 vacancies for government civil engineers. However, with less than 11 percent of the total civil engineers  qualifying officials said that the vacancies will be reprioritized, and those who secured the minimum 50 percent recruited into the “critical sectors” of the government.

A civil engineering graduate who did not qualify for the civil service attributed the third paper, which is subject related, for the poor performance. “Our main paper contains the design segment which carries the maximum weightage of 50 percent and it’s a very vast subject,” the 23-year-old graduate said. “Individuals usually are not able to cover all the designs and study only a selective few. This risk taken by the graduates might have resulted in the poor performance.”

General graduates with business background also performed poorly. Of the 304 general graduates who sat for the Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Management (PGDFM) only 90 secured the required percentage to pass. The vacancies for the post were also reduced from 36 in 2014 to 30 this year.

Of the 406 general graduates who appeared for Post Graduate Diploma in Public Administration (PGDPA), 213 scored 50 percent and above and only 47 of 129 graduates who sat for Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) qualified for the civil service.

A total of 839 graduates sat for the general category of the examination this year.

Chimi Dema, a graduate in BA Economics from Agnes Scott College, USA, topped in the general category by scoring 68.84 percent. Kinley Zangmo, a BBA graduate from Assumption University, Thailand stood second with 66.67 percent and Kuenzang Dorji, BA in Environment Studies and Economics graduate from Royal Thimphu College came third with 66.45 percent.

Chimi Dema said that the result came to her as a shock. “I was expecting my results to be good but I never thought that I would top the examination,” the 24-year-old said. “It was a month long preparation for me and I’m happy and excited with my performance.”

A narrow improvement of 0.36 percent was seen in this year’s results in the general category compared to last year’s performance. However, the performance by the Dzongkha graduates decreased by 13.93 percent this year.

Karma Dukar, a BA Language and Literature graduate topped the category with 61.14 percent. Sonam Wangchuk, BA (Honours) in Language and Literature came second with 60.90 percent and Yeshi Dorji, a BA in Language and Literature graduate stood third with 59.65 percent. All three graduated from the Institute of Language & Cultural Studies.

A total of 605 technical graduates from 30 different fields of studies appeared for the main examinations this year, of whom 412 obtained 50 percent and above with only 206 vacancies available for the technical graduates.

Chezang Dendup, BSc Agriculture from Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, India, topped the examination with a score of 75.23 percent. Langa Tenzin, an LLB graduate from NALSAR University of Law, India scored 73.59 percent to bag second place and Loday Phuntsho, Bachelors of Physiotherapy graduate from Sharda University, India came third with 72.51 percent.

From the technical category, the best performance was seen with the MBBS graduates. With 31 vacancies available, all 31 MBBS graduates who sat for the examination obtained 50 percent and above.

Of the 1,491 total graduates who appeared for the BCSE main examination, 806 scored 50 percent and above. Still some 385 graduates will be left without jobs. Officials said that despite 50 percent being the minimum pass percentage, jobs are not guaranteed to all those who score above 50 percent.

RCSC officials were not able to comment on the overall performance of this year’s batch in comparison to the past, however, they said that the performance has slightly dropped.

Last year a total of 1,238 graduates sat for the main examination and 712 scored 50 percent and above.

Younten Tshedup