Update [11th February, 2025]
What was supposed to be released by October of last year has been delayed all the way to late April. In a recent update, it’s been confirmed that the CSS results for 2024 will be announced by the last week of April 2025.
Although the results remain unannounced, the Chairman of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) has emphasized that CSS candidates must participate in upcoming examinations as mandated by law. In response, the Chief Justice questioned whether the FPSC would similarly withhold results for the 2025 and 2026 exams, potentially forcing candidates into a cycle of continuous testing without resolution.
Highlighting the urgency of the matter, the Chief Justice urged all stakeholders to await his official directive, which is expected to be issued within a day or two.
The Central Superior Services (CSS) examination is an arduous series of tests that qualify an individual for Pakistan’s elite civil service. Highly meritocratic and exceedingly difficult, the exam is essentially a platform for social mobility and acing the exam is synonymous with academic excellence and immense respect. But in 2025, the process has become fraught with delays, calls are being made for protests, and accusations are claiming bureaucratic incompetence.
The 2025 exams are set to be taken by the 15th of February, while the CSS 2024 results are still set to be released.
The CSS exams are administrated by the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), which has historically struggled with delays. The 2024 results were scheduled to be released by October but remain unpublished as of February 2025.
Not only are past results an essential strategy in learning marking patterns for future aspirants, but the rigid age ceiling of 30 compounds anxiety for those aged 29–30, who risk losing their final eligibility window if delays push the exam beyond their cutoff.
Another key hindrance has been the mandatory preliminary test (MPT). Aspirants complained about the abnormal difficulty of the test. Most notably, in 2025, the MPT saw over 10,000 failures, disproportionately affecting candidates from the impoverished regions of Balochistan and Sindh. These high failure rates lead to the reserved seats remaining unfilled in these regions. Additionally, delays in announcing MPT results give students little time to prepare for the written exams.
Many students received their MPT results as late as January 6th due to “unexplained delays.” The erratic and inconsistent scheduling includes examples such as the CSS in 2023, where the exam was postponed three times and eventually held in October 2023, and the CSS in 2022, where it was delayed until May 2022 due to the introduction of the MPT.
Key figures such as Khatib Khan and social activist Abdul Ghani have led protests that have burgeoned into a national campaign. More than 32,000 tweets flooded social media on February 8, demanding FPSC to take responsibility for their actions affecting thousands of aspirants’ lives. Even former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi lent support, meeting protesters and echoing calls for transparency.
Petitioners have taken their grievances to the Islamabad High Court (IHC), seeking to postpone the 2025 exam until the 2024 results are declared.
Interview with Advocate Ali Raza
In an exclusive interview with Paradigm Shift, Advocate Ali Raza, the lawyer leading the petition against FPSC, outlined the systemic failures. “FPSC operates as if it’s above accountability,” he said. “They delay exams arbitrarily, leaving aspirants in a bureaucratic void.”
A key complaint from the petitioners was if results from overlapping exams are delayed, candidates risk exhausting attempts unknowingly.
“Imagine passing in 2024 but failing in 2025—your attempt is still counted,” Raza explained. “This isn’t just about fairness; it’s about lives. Many aspirants face family pressure to secure elite roles. When they’re forced into lower groups or lose attempts, it triggers brain drain. Pakistan’s talent flees abroad.”
The IHC initially directed FPSC to address concerns by February 6, but the commission ignored the order and issued admission certificates for the CSS 2025 exams anyway. “This isn’t incompetence—it’s arrogance,” Raza argued.
Advocate Ali Raza explained the situation in detail. He stated:
“The thing is that FPSC, being a constitutional body, has long practiced reserving its right on its own. They announce the exams in August and then, if they feel administratively unprepared, they recall the exam and re-announce it after a lapse of time. This practice, which has been in place for the last two decades, is now causing a severe injustice to CSS aspirants.”
He went on to explain that the process not only forces candidates into an uncertain cycle of re-examinations and retakes but also risks exhausting their limited attempts.
“If you appear in the exam under these mysterious conditions, your one or two attempts will be exhausted—leaving you with only one chance out of the three allowed.”
– Advocate Ali Raza
The conversation also touched on judicial involvement. The court’s directive—that FPSC must listen to all petitioners by February 6—was highlighted as a rare but significant intervention. Raza warned that if FPSC continues these practices, it could face contempt proceedings, as repeated arbitrary decisions risk not only the careers of 30,000 aspirants but also the nation’s future bureaucratic quality and capacity.
Despite the legal and procedural uncertainties, Raza advised candidates not to lose sight of their studies. “Even if our concerns are raised, you must continue to focus on your preparation,” he urged, reflecting a broader sentiment among aspirants who feel entangled between delays and the need to prepare for the exams.
A Way Forward
The FPSC’s delays are a sign of a deeply outdated and ineffective system. An effective solution would be digitizing paper evaluations and moving away from the slow and old-school paper, engaging international firms for grading so they can compete and elevate the test to international standards, and enforcing fixed timelines for result releases, following globally recognized exam standards such as those used in the GRE or GMAT.
Targeted support for candidates from underserved provinces may also be essential to make sure reserved seats are properly filled from the more underdeveloped and underrepresented regions of Pakistan like Balochistan. The MPT could be tweaked to accurately reflect difficulty standards, and coaching and study resources related to it should be available online.
Additional fixes include introducing pre-interview psychological training and a shift in interview approaches where the focus is reoriented towards critical thinking rather than rote memorization, which alleviates stress and ameliorates the quality of future bureaucrats.
Deadlines for result declarations and age-limit flexibility could prevent future crises. Advocate Raza emphasized, “Courts must hold FPSC accountable. Constitutional bodies can’t trample equitable rights.”
Conclusion
The CSS exams have been a platform of social mobility and an avenue where one could serve one’s nation. In a state fraught with corruption and nepotism, it was important for Pakistan to retain an examination that was still led in a meritocratic fashion. Yet today, systemic delays, opaque processes, and institutional arrogance threaten to extinguish that hope.
60% of Pakistan’s population is under 30, and the inability to reform the delays risks alienating a generation where the best and brightest no longer believe in the sole meritocratic institution in the nation.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
The author is studying Economics at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) with a keen interest in financial affairs, international relations, and geo-politics.