Higher viva marks may undermine fairness in public recruitment

Last July, BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed said his party wanted the viva marks of the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) examination reduced to 50 from 200 to limit scope for discrimination in Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC) recruitment. By then, however, the viva marks had already been reduced to 100, as the total BCS examination mark was reduced from 1,000 to 1,100 on December 4, 2024.

Salahuddin Ahmed is the home minister now, and his government is preparing to raise viva marks of recruitment exams for government employees of  grades 11-20 by up to 400 percent. Although the exams the BPSC conducts for grades 1-10 differ from those administered by individual ministries, divisions, and subordinate bodies to recruit employees for grades 11-20, the risk from higher viva marks that the BNP lawmaker had identified remains the same for both exams. Even the State Minister for Public Administration Md Abdul Bari told parliament in June that retaining the 100-mark BCS viva would make recruitment more transparent and free from irregularities and discrimination.

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Yet, the government appears to be backtracking from applying the same principle of fairness for recruitment in the lower grades. On September 6, the Secretary Committee on Administrative Improvement approved a draft that would increase viva marks for grades 11-20 while lowering written-test pass marks. At the time of writing this column, the rules have not been gazetted.

As per the new proposed rules, for grades 11-12, viva exams would carry 50 marks, up from 10 marks and constituting one-third of the total marks. Meanwhile, the written pass mark would fall from 50 percent to 35 percent. For grades 13-16, viva and written exams currently carry 10 and 90 marks, respectively; the proposed marks are 40 and 60, respectively. For grades 17-20, each test would carry 25 marks. Although candidates are required to secure pass marks in both tests, this redistribution of marks gives the interview board more power to select or eliminate a candidate based on a relatively subjective assessment.

Since ministries and their offices recruit directly to grades 11-20, giving broad discretion to a small panel by increasing viva marks creates risks, regardless of the recruiting authority. Departmental recruitment faces corruption allegations, and the draft would cover about 13.25 lakh of the 20 lakh civil administration posts (it excludes disciplined forces and BPSC posts—grades 1-10).

Article 29 of the constitution guarantees equality of opportunity in public employment. It covers office assistants and cadre officers alike. Lower-grade posts do not justify weaker safeguards; they offer a route to stable employment.

The government says candidates use proxy examinees, AI, and electronic devices to cheat during written tests. These are security failures requiring better identity checks, screening, invigilation, restricted access, and prosecution. Higher viva marks address none of these issues, and instead reduce the weight of an answer script open to audit and rechecking.

However, Information and Broadcasting Adviser Zahed Ur Rahman offers another defence. He argues that textbook knowledge alone cannot identify the best recruits because judgement, communication, and aptitude also matter. While written tests cannot measure every quality, an unstructured viva also does not assess a candidate’s aptitude consistently. So, it should not determine one-third to half of a candidate’s score. An interviewer’s confidence in an examinee does not automatically make the test reliable or fair. If the purpose is to test aptitude, the assessment should fit the job: a practical test for one, a work sample for another, and a structured interview, where appropriate.

Meanwhile, on September 9, Bari said discussions were under way to bring different recruitment examinations under one system. Consistent rules may be reasonable, but they do not explain these ratios. A common framework could retain a smaller viva component; imposing one marks distribution setting on different types of jobs may undermine job-specific assessment.

In fact, Zahed has acknowledged that viva voces are subjective and leave more room to manipulate marks or favour a preferred candidate. He has urged the media to report irregularities after recruitment. But by then, marks will have been awarded and appointments made. Without recorded interviews, published criteria, and a right of review, proving abuse will be difficult. Safeguards must come before appointments, not after.

Besides, Bangladesh’s record shows why the concern is valid. The BPSC cancelled the first viva results of the 27th BCS in 2007 following allegations of gross irregularities, question leaks, and corruption centred on the oral examination. The Supreme Court upheld the cancellation in 2010. In 2025, however, the Appellate Division ordered the appointment of 1,137 candidates from that viva. Whatever the legal merits at each stage, the dispute took nearly two decades to resolve.

The 2024 PSC question-leak investigation points to another distinct risk. Investigators alleged that a network involving PSC officials and employees had leaked at least 30 recruitment papers over 12 years. That case concerned written examinations. It supports making the written tests more secure, not shifting the weight to a viva.

The home minister’s own position illustrates the political risk. In October 2024, he demanded the cancellation of all 2,064 cadre appointments from the 43rd BCS and the recruitment processes for the 44th to 46th BCS. He described the then BPSC as partisan and said the processes should be scrapped to prevent alleged Awami League and Chhatra League loyalists from entering the administration.

The interim government did not accept the demand in full. But it cancelled the gazette issued on October 15, 2024, re-screened the recommended candidates, and appointed 1,896 officers. A total of 267 candidates were excluded from the BPSC’s initial recommendation of 2,163 candidates in January 2024. Among those excluded, 227 were deemed unsuitable following intelligence reports and 40 had missed medical examinations. However, the government later appointed 162 of those 227 candidates.

The allegations did not prove that candidates were selected for political affiliations, and Salahuddin did not identify the viva specifically as the mechanism to bring in partisan recruits. But his argument was that a partisan authority could shape the bureaucracy. That concern supports limiting discretion. If the BNP believed one government could capture recruitment, it should design rules that no government, including its own, can exploit.

The government’s reform agenda offers a better approach. At the April launch of the BPSC’s one-year reform report, Zahed called for psychometric testing, while the BPSC chairman urged competency-based interview training. Those proposals address what an assessment measures and how it is scored; the September 6 draft only changes the marks. A sound system would define competencies, set scoring rubrics, assign trained panels at random, record interviews, publish marks, and provide an appeal process.

Before gazetting the rules, the government should publish the draft, committee report, and evidence behind selecting these ratios. It should explain the 35 percent written pass mark for grades 11-12, the equal marks for written viva exams for grades 17-20, and how candidates can challenge a score that alters the merit order.

In 2025, the BNP said high viva marks created room for corruption. Now, in government, it says lower viva marks make BCS recruitment more transparent, while proposing higher viva shares for a large number of civil administration posts. Pointing to the two different recruitment authorities does not resolve that contradiction. Until the government explains the proposed changes and limits the interview board’s discretion, the draft should not be gazetted.

Arafat Rahaman is a journalist at The Daily Star. He can be reached at arafat.mcj@yahoo.com.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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