The
Navy dedicates an enormous amount of time & effort, without actually
appearing to do so, in converting anyone who dons the whites into ‘Jacks of all
trades’ while taking equal care to ensure that none of the trades is
accidentally mastered in the process. It achieves this “important” task by
constantly keeping everyone on the move across trades & stations, often
without warning. So it hardly came as a surprise to discover one fine day that
I was to lead a team of officers to Chennai and north Karnataka, to select
candidates from final year engineering students for the Services Selection
Board (SSB) interviews to be conducted subsequently under the University Entry
Scheme (UES).
Basically, this time we were the
“chosen ones” who had been plucked from different units under the Southern
Naval Command and nominated to be the vanguard of this massive periodic exercise
undertaken by the Navy. Different venues are organized for this exercise by the
Navy’s ‘Directorate of Manpower Planning & Recruitment’ in consultation
with academic institutions across the length & breadth of the country with
students from a number of technical colleges volunteering to appear for these “pre-SSB”
interviews.
Though these recollections are from a
few years ago, I believe they merit some cyber space due to their relevance
& frequent comments from our HR planners regarding the often questionable
quality of candidates appearing before the SSB. Hopefully, this piece might end
up throwing some light on the challenges facing us/ way ahead.
To cut to the chase, our team got
down to the task & ended up hopping from one venue to the other while interviewing
a total of almost 1400 candidates at a frenetic pace since the schedule had
been finalized, quite naturally, without any particular consideration for our
collective ability to maintain focus for the duration of the onslaught.
However, that probably helped in its own twisted way in underlining certain
other issues pertinent to the success of this exercise.
To begin with, it was surprising to
note that even though the colleges were located in states with a substantial
coastline, most candidates displayed an amazing lack of knowledge about the
armed forces in general and the Navy in particular. While the Navy usually
prides itself in being the “silent service”, unless we have an aggressive
outreach programme in place to educate the young in our schools & colleges
about the armed forces, we will tend to lose out when it comes to the
consideration of career options by them. One way of achieving this could be by assigning
responsibility & designating the Naval Officer-in-Charge of each
geographical area for the educational institutions within that area. An
interactive session with students every quarter by an officer in full uniform
would do wonders for the overall future health of the Navy in particular and
country in general instead of leaving the task to actors role-playing
on-screen.
Most colleges we visited did not
have an NCC (National Cadet Corps) wing. In the overall analysis, NCC cadets
fared fairly well during the interviews. In fact, they displayed a higher
awareness level and generally seemed much better put together than their
counterparts. Setting up of NCC wings in colleges/ institutes, particularly in
a country with an all-volunteer armed forces setup, should be a priority area
if the services are to attract talent as well as imbue the young with a sense
of pride in the nation’s armed forces and ensure their active participation in
nation building. It would also instill a sense of self-discipline among
students which can only be beneficial for the nation’s progress. Quite
surprisingly, while the colleges themselves were keen on setting up NCC wings on
their premises, they didn’t appear to know how to go about it. The armed forces
need to get on the front foot here through the respective state NCC
Directorates/ Group HQs.
With almost nil exceptions, female
candidates from Chennai as well as North Karnataka were found to be far
superior in comparison to their male counterparts in the overall assessment of
our team. The official website of the
Indian Navy indicates that presently women are only being inducted into the ATC,
Observer, Law, Logistics, Education & Naval Architecture branches of the Indian
Navy as officers. By not allowing their entry in the niche sub-branches like Hydrography, Naval Armament Inspection, Information
Technology and Air Technical,
the Navy and indeed the nation is losing out on a large talent pool of female
candidates. Our HR policies and “manning plan” could certainly be tweaked to
ensure the employment of female officers in IT billets, Naval dockyards, second
line aviation workshops, Naval aircraft yards, armament depots, cartographic
units, etc.
To our consternation we also found
that some of the colleges, as a matter of policy, barred students from
appearing for the Navy campus interview if they had already appeared for and
been selected by whichever firm had earlier conducted interviews in their
campus. These students were given the choice by their respective colleges of
appearing before the Naval Board only if they chose to surrender their earlier
selection! Therefore, the young students had the unenviable task of deciding
whether the proverbial ‘one in hand was better than two in the bush’. Quite
naturally, a very large number of them did not turn up before our interview
team. By the institutes’ own estimates, this was approximately the top quarter
of the cream of students.
As a die-hard patriot, I consider
this as an absolute disgrace. If the safety & security of the nation comes
first, as it must for all citizens in their respective countries, the choice of
serving in a nation’s armed forces should never be available on the bargaining
table for barter. The message being sent across to young impressionable minds
by these “rogue” educational institutions is causing incalculable damage and should
never be condoned. It is hoped that the HRD/ Education ministries will take
note & put an end to this practice.
To conclude, though most new
entrants in the Navy are undergraduates and engineering graduates make up a
small number however, female officer candidates are only inducted as graduates/
post graduates. The total time spent in training for graduate/ post graduate
male and female officer candidates is also much lesser than for the
undergraduate entry male officer candidates and therefore the impact of the
former on the service is of a more immediate nature. Quite clearly then, for the
UES entry scheme to produce the kind of results expected from it, some overhaul
action is required at the grassroots first.
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