Part Three
Tazeem Haider | India Tomorrow
New Delhi, May 1— After the results of the Civil Services Examination 2018 were out in the first week of April this year, Jamia Millia Islamia’s Residential Coaching Academy (JMIRCA) had more than one reason to cheer.
Junaid Ahmad, a student of JMIRCA, secured 3rd rank in the all India ranking. And, in all 40 students of the academy were selected for civil services. This year, a total of 759 candidates cracked the Civil Services Exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission.
India Tomorrow spoke to senior IAS officer (retd.) M.F. Farooqui who heads JMIRAC. It is under him that the academy has been spawning more and more IAS officers every year. A 1978 batch IAS officer, Farooqui has earlier served as secretary for Telecom and Heavy Industries in the government of India.
Excerpts from Interview:
How was the result this year for Jamia Millia Islamia Residential Coaching Academy?
By the grace of God, this year’s result has been wonderful for us. From our academy, 40 students have cracked the civil services exams and 15 of them have been selected as IAS, PCS or IFS officers. This performance is also encouraging because there was a 20% drop in the vacancy rate this year.
What is the social background of the students studying here?
The students who come to us are Muslims, SC/STs, and we take women too, irrespective of their social backgrounds. We have very sincere, intelligent students, most of whom come from a modest background.
How many centres do you have for conducting entrance examinations for the academy?
We are making efforts in the direction of increasing the number of our coaching centres. Initially, we only had a centre in the Delhi where we would conduct our entrance exams for the academy, but in the three years we have more centres than before. Last year, we conducted exams in 10 centres across the country. Next year, we will be doing it in 12 centres. So this way, civil service aspirants from all over India have an option to chase their dreams by joining one of our rapidly expanding centres.
How many students apply for your academy?
The number of students applying for our academy has increased now. Earlier, close to 1000 students would apply for our academy. These days the numbers have swelled to 7000 applicants. So this shows how much interest is there among the youth to opt for civil services.
Has any student from your academy secured high rank in the result this year? If yes, how does it inspire other youths?
Junaid Ahmad, a student of our academy, secured all India 3rd rank this year. So, the youth has now encouragingly started dreaming that even they can secure such high ranks or perform even better. So we nurture the intellect of our students by promoting an atmosphere of group discussions etc. not only ask them mug things up for the exams. We conduct their mock interviews by inviting IAS, IFS officers that is why our success rate is good when it comes to interviews.
What are your plans to create a better atmosphere for civil service training through your academy?
Right now, we are trying to admit students at a very young age, for instance, who are of 24 years old. We will try our best to ensure that when a student joins our academy, he gets selected in any one of the services. By the grace of God, we are making this dream of ours possible. Where there were used to be only 7 or 10 IAS officers from our academy, now around 40 students of ours get selected. If it goes on like this then soon our centre will be the most popular coaching academy in India.
Series Concluded
Part One
Part Two
