December 15, 2001	Saturday	Ramazan 29, 1422

KARACHI, Dec 14: A high-level meeting is scheduled for Saturday to take a decision on the fallout of the health department’s order cancelling results of the second entrance tests conducted by the Institute of Business Administration and taken by around 5,500 students seeking admission to the government-run medical colleges in the province.

Talking to Dawn, the Sindh chief secretary, Javed Ashraf Hussain, said that the meeting — which would also be attended by the governor, the health minister, the health secretary, the city Nazim and the IBA director — would review the decision of the health department.

“The meeting will take a decision which will be in the best interest of the students and which will ensure that they are least inconvenienced.”

He said that an inquiry had already been initiated into the alleged irregularities in the entrance tests.

The Sindh chief secretary said that if the report, to be submitted by the governor’s inspection team on Dec 26, established that there had been only 34 cases of irregularities, then there would be no need of holding third entrance tests and those 34 candidates would be disqualified allowing other students admission as per their status on the merit list.

Earlier, the students seeking admission to the government-run medical colleges in the city staged demonstrations and called on various dignitaries, including the city Nazim, Naimatullah Khan, on Friday, expressing their dissatisfaction over the government decision and the grounds on which the health department had cancelled the results of the entrance tests.

A press release issued by the city government on Friday said hundreds of students had called on the Nazim and conveyed to him their reservations about the health department’s decision of declaring the entrance tests held by the IBS null and void.

The students, as well as their parents, rejected the government announcement that another entrance test would be held by the end of December as 34 cases of irregularities had been detected by the IBA.

Talking to a delegation of anguished students and their parents at his office on Friday, the city Nazim said that he had already talked to the authorities concerned on the issue of medical entrance tests. He said he was aware that the students and their parents were going through a great deal of anguish these days.

After hearing the students for about two hours, the Nazim expressed concern over the government decision. He also spoke to the Sindh chief secretary in the presence of students and informed him that the repeated cancellation of the entrance tests was not acceptable to the students.

“Another entrance test will also reduce their chances of getting admission to other institutions where the admission process is going on according to their schedule,” he told the Sindh chief secretary.

A spokesman for the city government clarified that the second entry test had not been cancelled on the demand of the city Nazim and he had not been present in any meeting held at the Governor House on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a joint body of parents of affected students has also been formed, which, after its initial talks with the authorities, demanded that third entrance test should not be conducted, adding that those 34 students who had resorted to underhand tactics should be brought to book.

One caller, who identified himself as Dr Anwer Saeed, said that the newly formed action committee on medical college admissions, which was also planning to go to court, would meet the city Nazim at his office on Saturday. He requested the affected students and parents to contact him (Tel 4981622), Dr Sami (6907800-6907900) and Prof Salim Multani (8111035) for any joint strategy.

A student who spoke to Dawn said that the third entrance test would be an unnecessary burden on the students who had already taken two entrance tests.

“Since we were declared eligible by the last merit list, we did not bother to make arrangement for admission to the Karachi Medical and Dental College and the University of Karachi. Now the health department has sprung this surprise on us and we have no idea how to go about getting admission to other institutions,” a girl student told Dawn on phone.

IBA sources told Dawn on Friday initially two complaints had been received about underhand tactics in the test results. The applicants had named the students who had been given higher marks despite their poor performance in the examination.

Following the complaints, the IBA testing chief tallied the marked answer sheets with the photocopies of unmarked answer sheets, detecting discrepancies in two cases. Thereafter, the IBA had double checked all 5,500 answer sheets, discovering some 34 cases of irregularities, the sources added.

Affected students and their parents held demonstrations twice at the Karachi Press Club on Friday.

They said they should not be punished for the crimes of 34 students who had resorted to underhand tactics. They expressed their resolve that they would not take another test.