LAHORE, Aug 29: Refusing to accept the Government College University’s statement in which it claims to have increased 10 per cent seats in intermediate classes, the Punjab education department has again sent a reminder to the institution seeking detailed comments on the decision.

When contacted, Punjab Special Secretary (higher education) Nazir Saeed said the GCU had responded to the department’s letters by simply saying that it had increased 10 per cent seats.

However, he said, the department had not accepted the GCU’s statement, and sent a fresh reminder seeking explanation about the total number of seats, their classification and comparison with the seats offered last year.

Meanwhile, the Parents Action Committee has again dispatched a letter to the secretary, seeking redress of grievances of the students, who had applied for admission on open merit to the GCU’s intermediate classes.

In their two-page letter, PAC convener Tanzeem Naqvi and coordinator Khalid Cheddar have stated that the impression that GCU had increased 10 per cent seats in line with the Punjab education department’s policy was wrong.

They said the GCU had 1,000 students’ in-take capacity for the first year classes when the new admission policy was notified. The breakdown of seats was 275 each for pre-engineering and pre-medical groups, and 450 for computer, arts and general groups.

As such, the PAC office-bearers said, increase of 100 seats (10 per cent of total seats) was due. All these seats needed to be filled on open merit.

They said any apparent increase of 35 to 40 seats at the GCU was due to the vacant seats, which were filled by many candidates next on merit.

As a matter of fact, they said, the GCU had not implemented any provision of the Punjab government’s admission policy, thus, depriving many talented students of getting admission to the institution.

They also alleged that 35 to 40 per cent privileged students with low marks had been admitted under the cover of quotas. They claimed that the quota seats in the GCU included 10 per cent on a self-finance basis, 8.5 per cent for overseas Pakistanis, five per cent sports quota, as much seats for O-Level students and 1.5 per cent seats to be filled on co-curricular basis.

Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool recently told newsmen that he would look into the matter of 10 per cent seats’ increase for the GCU’s intermediate classes.