Minimalist IAS
CSAT 2019 paper

UPSC CSE CSAT 2019 · Question 27 · Reading comprehension

With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:

Passage—5

Access to schooling for those coming of school age is close to universal, but access to quality exhibits a sharp gradient with socio-economic status. Quotas for the weaker sections in private schools is a provision introduced by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. The quotas have imposed a debate on issues of social integration and equity in education that private actors had escaped by and large. The idea of egalitarian education system with equality of opportunity as its primary goal appears to be outside the space that private school principals inhabit. Therefore, the imposition of the quotas has led to resistance, sometimes justified.

CSAT 2019 · Q27

Reading comprehension Medium

With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made:

  1. 1.Making equality of opportunity a reality is the fundamental goal of the Indian education system.
  2. 2.The present Indian school system is unable to provide egalitarian education.
  3. 3.Abolition of private schools and establishment of more government schools is the only way to ensure egalitarian education.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (b) 2 only

Access to schooling is nearly universal, but access to quality falls sharply with socio-economic status, and private schools resist the equity quotas. So the present system does not deliver egalitarian education. The passage neither states the goal of the whole system nor proposes abolishing private schools.

  • ✗ 1. The passage says equality of opportunity lies 'outside the space' of private school principals; it does not declare it the fundamental goal of the whole system.
  • ✓ 2. 'Access to quality exhibits a sharp gradient with socio-economic status' — schooling today is not egalitarian.
  • ✗ 3. The passage even calls the resistance 'sometimes justified'; abolition and 'the only way' are extreme and nowhere in it.

Remember · Accept the statement that restates the passage's diagnosis; reject remedies it never proposes, especially 'the only way'.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2019, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·

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