India, June 20 -- Every year, lakhs of humanities students prepare for competitive examinations. But what happens if they do not clear them? The real question is whether colleges are preparing them for careers beyond the examination at all.

Consider what the country asks of its most driven young people. It tells them to learn the Constitution, the budget, the welfare system, the history of the republic and the ethics of public life. Then it sets things up so that, unless they clear one examination that almost everyone fails, the job market treats all of that knowledge as if it were worth nothing. Lakhs of students join the queue anyway. They are neither foolish nor lazy. They are responding sensibly to a country where a government job st...