Aptitude and Foundational Values for Civil Services
Aptitude
- Aptitude is an ability to do something.
- An aptitude is a component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level, which can also be considered “talent”.
- Aptitudes may be physical or mental.
What is not aptitude?
Aptitude is not
- knowledge or understanding,
- Interest,
- learned or acquired abilities (skills)
- attitude
Difference between Attitude & Aptitude
| Attitude |
Aptitude |
- It is your positive/negative feeling towards a person, object, event, idea, environment.
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- Latin Word “Aptus” meaning fitness or adeptness
- Innate, inborn potential. But not cast in stone. It can be from nature, it can be nurtured.
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- Associated with character
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- Associated with competence.
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- Attitude determines How people arrive at correct judgment, how they’ll perform a given task?
- e.g. If an officer has a negative attitude towards minorities, he may delay passing their scholarship files.
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- It determines whether Person will develop the skills to perform a particular task?
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| Examples of attitudes
- Confidence
- Cautious
- tolerant
- pessimism
- responsible
|
Examples of aptitude
- Quantitative aptitude
- Verbal aptitude
- Reasoning aptitude
- Finger dexterity
- Visual memory
|
- Only mental.
- Surviving terminal disease depends on your attitude towards life rather than ‘aptitude’ in physical training.
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- To become an officer in defense or police services, you need to have both physical and mental aptitude.
- Aptitude of hand and eye coordination : Good cricketer.
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- In India, most people pickup profession without seeing whether they’ve the ‘aptitude’ for it or not?
- They choose a profession by change and not choice.
- So, they make a living from their career, but don’t derive job-satisfaction e.g. Most Engineers, pharmacist and IT graduates.
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A Civil servant must have 3 aptitudes
- Intellectual aptitude.
- Emotional aptitude.
- Moral aptitude.
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(Souce of table: Mrunal)
Foundational Values for Civil Services
- For more on foundational values, refer Mrunal.
