Loksewa Syllabus 2082: Section Officer, Nayab Subba & Kharidar Papers

The syllabus (pathyakram) for every Loksewa post is issued by the Public Service Commission of Nepal, known in Nepali as the Lok Sewa Aayog. The Commission was established on 1 Ashad 2008 BS (15 June 1951 AD) and is a constitutional body governed by Part 23, Articles 242 and 243 of the Constitution of Nepal, 2072 (2015). It conducts open competitive examinations to fill vacancies in the federal civil service, Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and other government services, and publishes each post's official course of study on its portal at psc.gov.np.

Three posts dominate the search interest of Nepali aspirants: Section Officer (Sakha Adhikrit, a gazetted third-class officer post), Nayab Subba (NaSu, a non-gazetted first-class assistant post) and Kharidar (a non-gazetted second-class post). All three now follow an integrated and unified examination system with three stages: a Stage I preliminary written test (objective/multiple choice), a Stage II main written examination (subjective), and a Stage III final stage combining a computer-skill test and an interview.

A recurring feature across all three levels is that the preliminary paper carries 100 marks and requires 45 marks to pass, acting purely as a screening filter, while each main paper carries 100 marks and requires 40 marks to pass and actually counts toward merit. Because the Commission periodically revises its syllabus and marking scheme, the section-by-section structure below reflects the current published pathyakram and should always be cross-checked against the latest notice on psc.gov.np before you sit an exam.

For Section Officer, Stage I is an objective preliminary paper of 100 marks (pass mark 45). Under the revised officer-level structure this is framed as an Administrative Aptitude Test with general awareness, an aptitude component and an English-language competence component. Clearing the preliminary only qualifies a candidate for the main examination; its marks do not add to the final merit list.

Stage II (main examination) for services other than the Foreign Affairs Service consists of three subjective papers of 100 marks each, 300 marks in total, with 3 hours per paper. Paper I, the Governance System paper, is divided into four sections: State and Governance (30 marks), Constitution and Law (20 marks), Public Service and Public Management (30 marks) and Resource Management and Planning (20 marks). Paper II, Contemporary Issues, splits into Social Issues (30), Economic Issues (20), Developmental Issues (30) and Environmental Issues (20). Paper III is a Service-Related Subject specific to the candidate's service group.

Candidates applying to the Foreign Affairs Service sit two additional papers (an English-language paper and a Foreign Policy and International Relations paper) in place of the standard service paper, taking their Stage II total to 400 marks. The Stage III final stage carries 60 marks for non-foreign services (an IT skill test worth 10, a group test worth 10 and an interview worth 40) and 70 marks for the Foreign Affairs Service.

The Nayab Subba examination totals 340 marks across the three stages. Stage I (Paper I) is a General Knowledge and General Mental Ability test worth 100 marks, delivered as 50 objective multiple-choice questions of 2 marks each in 45 minutes, with a pass mark of 45. Within Paper I, General Knowledge carries roughly 60 marks and covers the universe and geography of the world and Nepal, world and Nepali history, Nepal's social, cultural and economic status, science and technology, environment, international affairs and current affairs; the General Mental Ability component carries about 40 marks and tests verbal, quantitative and non-verbal reasoning.

Stage II (main examination) has two subjective papers of 100 marks each, 2 hours 30 minutes per paper, each needing 40 marks to pass. Paper II, Contemporary Studies and Public Service Management, is common to all service groups and is divided into three sections: Section A on the geographical, social and economic status of Nepal (35 marks), Section B on the constitutional system and government (35 marks) and Section C on public-service operations and management such as office and record management, government accounting and civil-service structure (30 marks). Paper III is a Service-Group-Related Subject that varies for Administration, Accounts, Revenue, Judicial and other groups.

The Stage III final stage for Nayab Subba is worth 40 marks, comprising a computer-skill practical test of 10 marks (about 15 minutes) and an interview of 30 marks. Because Paper II is shared across all non-technical groups, most of its content, especially the constitutional and socio-economic sections, overlaps directly with the Section Officer syllabus, so preparation materials can be reused across the two levels.

Kharidar is the most-searched of the three when people look for a downloadable syllabus PDF, but the underlying structure closely mirrors Nayab Subba. Stage I is a 100-mark objective paper on General Knowledge and basic office skills, again 50 questions of 2 marks each in 45 minutes with a pass mark of 45. Stage II adds two subjective main papers of 100 marks each (pass mark 40), and Stage III combines a 10-mark computer-skill test with a 30-mark interview, giving a 340-mark total.

The Kharidar main Paper on Office Management is divided into three sections. Section A, Office Management (40 marks), covers the concept of an office, office resources, office procedures such as correspondence, registration and dispatch, notice and information handling, record management, filing and indexing, and minuting of meetings. Section B, Civic Conscience and Character Development (30 marks), covers civic awareness, citizenship and national duties. Section C is Basic Mathematics (30 marks), covering everyday arithmetic such as fractions, percentages, profit and loss, and simple interest.

The second main paper, Job-Knowledge-Related Subject (100 marks), is specific to the service group the candidate applies for. Presenting this content as a clean, sectioned HTML page, rather than as scattered scanned PDF files, makes it far easier to read on a phone, to search within, and to link out to the underlying reference material each topic depends on.

The real value of an internally-linked HTML syllabus is that almost every chapter points to a body of durable factual content that a candidate has to memorise anyway. Constitutional topics that recur across all three posts, such as the salient features of the present Constitution of Nepal, fundamental rights and the functions of constitutional bodies, map directly to a dedicated constitution reference. Governance chapters on federalism, provinces and multi-level government connect to province and district profiles.

Socio-economic and general-knowledge chapters map just as cleanly. Topics on the social and cultural aspects of Nepal, population, ethnicity, languages and religion draw on national census data and on ethnic-group, language and religion breakdowns. Chapters on the geography and natural resources of Nepal connect to material on rivers, hydropower potential, forests and lakes, while history sections covering the Kiranti, Lichhavi and Malla periods and modern political change connect to a Nepal history reference. General-knowledge questions on national identity are covered by a national-symbols reference.

Presenting the syllabus this way turns a static list of headings into a study map: a candidate can read the exact chapter the Commission will examine, then follow a link to a cited, up-to-date factual page on the same site. For each of the topics below, the corresponding reference is the natural next click.

Across all three posts the pattern is consistent enough to memorise once. The preliminary paper is always objective and always worth 100 marks with a 45-mark screening threshold; wrong-answer negative marking has applied in some cycles, so candidates should check the specific vacancy notice. The main papers are subjective, worth 100 marks each, and require 40 marks to pass, mixing short-answer questions (typically 5 marks) with long-answer questions (typically 10 marks).

The difference between the officer level and the assistant level is mainly depth and paper count. Section Officer sits three main papers (300 marks) plus a larger final stage that includes a group test, reflecting the analytical and leadership demands of a gazetted officer role. Nayab Subba and Kharidar sit two main papers (200 marks) with a simpler final stage of a computer test plus interview. The Kharidar main papers are pitched at a more operational, office-procedure level than the policy-heavy officer papers.

Because the preliminary is only a qualifier, merit is decided by the total of the main written papers and the final stage. That makes the subjective papers, especially the shared contemporary-studies and governance content, the highest-leverage part of preparation for every candidate regardless of level.

Start by fixing the exact paper structure for your target post and writing down the mark weight of every section, because the Commission allocates a predictable number of questions to each. Knowing that, for example, the Governance System paper gives 30 marks to State and Governance and 20 to Constitution and Law lets you budget study time in proportion to marks rather than spreading effort evenly across unequal sections.

Next, work topic by topic rather than paper by paper. Many chapters, particularly the constitutional, socio-economic and governance blocks, appear in near-identical form across Section Officer, Nayab Subba and Kharidar, so a single pass through the underlying reference content on Nepal's constitution, census, geography and history prepares you for the same questions at every level. Use the on-site links attached to each topic to read the cited facts rather than relying on second-hand exam guides.

Finally, treat any dated figure in a syllabus guide with caution and verify current numbers, such as the latest census totals, fiscal-year rates or newly amended constitutional provisions, against primary sources before an exam. The syllabus headings themselves are durable, but the facts inside them change, and the Commission expects up-to-date answers.