HYDERABAD, Dec 27: The vigilance team of the Sindh University paid a surprise visit to the Government College examination centre, Khairpur Nathan Shah, on Thursday and caught a large number of students cheating, so it cancelled the BA Part I paper of Muslim History and MA previous papers.

It also paid surprise visits to the Government College. Mehar, Government Girls College, Dadu, Government Boys College, Dadu, and Government College, Sehwan.

The team — which comprised Prof Liaquat Aziz, Prof Agha Khalid Hussain, and Prof Mrs Saeeda Bashir — caught at least 50 students cheating in these examination centres.

It has submitted a report to the vice chancellor, Sindh University, Mazharul Haq Siddiqui.

SPLA: The Sindh Professor and Lecturers Association has welcomed the decision of the Sindh chief minister exempting the school and college students from the payment of computer fee.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday, the central president of the SPLA, Prof Syed Riaz Ahsan and Prof Mohammad Siddiqui Unnar suggested that the computer fees, which has already been recovered by the colleges and schools of Sindh, should be refunded to the students as they had not been provided any computer facilities in the educational institutions.

They pointed out that the annual intermediate examinations were scheduled to be held with effect from April 21, but the computer laboratories were non-existent in the schools and colleges of Sindh, especially interior Sindh.

They said even computer science teachers had not been appointed and the Sindh education department was totally confused about the computer science syllabus.

They appealed to the Sindh chief minister to take notice of the inefficiency and the casual attitude of the education department and order that the computer science examination would not be held during the 2003 session.