KARACHI, June 13: The Diploma in Business Administration annual examinations would be conducted this year at city colleges, instead of technical institutes, it was learnt officially.

A senior officer at the Sindh Board of Technical Education said that the decision to depart from the previous practice of holding the examinations at private institutes was abandoned in order to improve the standard of examinations.

The two-year diploma course was first introduced in 1995-96 which attracted a very nominal number of students, said sources, adding that now the total registration of students in Part-I and Part-II was around 4,000.

In all, 1,200 candidates would take the DBA Part-II examinations commencing from June 21 at four centres. The Part-I exams would be conducted sometime in July, said the SBTE official.

He said that since the institutes did not have enough space to accommodate a large number of candidates, the centres were being set up at colleges where invigilators and other examination staff would also be engaged from respective colleges.

He added that the change of venue was part of the SBTE plan to overhaul the entire examination system of the board. He said that the board was also considering reducing the examination load that had increased due to a long list of courses, some of which had lost their significance or were attracting a very limited number of students.

Sources in the technical institutions, however, maintained that the latest measures by the board taken for the DBA examinations was aimed at ensuring the fair and transparent conduct of SBTE examinations.

The change of venue would surely discourage malpractice in examinations and eliminate the chances of “influence and understanding” that worked between institute to institute.

The increase in registrations started taking place from 2001, when the number of DBA candidates shot up from an average 150-200 to 1,200. Now, the first-year enrolment at 50-60 private institutes has crossed the 2,000 mark, added the source.

It was learnt that the Inter-Board Committee of Chairmen has already assessed the two-year DBA course offered by SBTE equivalent to HSC/Intermediate. In view of the acceptability of the course, it is necessary that the quality of teaching at the institute and the standard of examinations conducted by the SBTE also be improved, remarked an educationist.