KARACHI, June 11: The admission committee for government-run intermediate colleges in the city was irresolute till Monday in regard to a schedule of admissions for the new academic session. Sources in the Karachi district education department, said that members of the central admission committee, met on Monday again but were not found firm as far as date of commencement of first year admissions in colleges was concerned.

The meeting, however, has finalized the contents of admission forms and brochures and it is likely that the Sindh government press will be handed over the printing job in a day or two, said a participant of the meeting, adding that the printing of documents would take about ten days.

On a suggestion given by the chair, EDO (Higher Education), Prof Mohammad Rais Alvi, that the admission process could be initiated with the sale of the forms from July 20, the members of the admission committee said the commencement of admission was conditional to availability of forms at bank branches.

Independent quarters, however, pointed out that in the given situation, when the SSC (Science) annual examinations were yet to come out, any commencement of admission process on July 20 would be aimed at phasing the process, which would not prove viable as it would involve extra finances spent on college teachers working under different sub–committees on admission.

It is learnt that the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, was more likely to give the Science group results in the last week of July.

The city government admission committee has planned to give about 75,000 admissions in the faculties of Science, Arts, Commerce and Home Economics for 2005-06 sessions at about 118 government colleges. Candidates would have to give names of eight colleges in order of their priority for admission.

The District Officer (College), Prof Asghar Ali Khan, told Dawn that unlike previous years, students belonging to the Home Economics faculty, technical board, O-level system and other boards and foreign students would be required to purchase and submit back the admission forms only at two branches of the bank, which would help reduce the time for sorting out of forms of the said categories.

He further said that claim forms pertaining to admission would be handled by 12 bank branches, instead of claim centres which used to function at different colleges in past.

He informed that the committee had also decided to do away with the previous practice of manual scrutiny of admission forms and go for a computerized process.

When contacted, the EDO, Prof Rais Alvi said that he had a tentative date of July 20 in his mind for the admission take-off, but at the same time felt that things could not be handled befittingly prior to the announcement of SSC (Science group) examination results.

He was unable to give dates about the sale and acceptance of admission forms, issuance of merit lists, acceptance of admission fee and commencement of first year classes at colleges and said that those were yet to be finalized.

To another question, Prof Alvi said that demands for admissions by woman high graders would increase at the PECHS, St Lawrence, Stadium Road and Khatoon-i- Pakistan colleges as St Joseph’s College for Woman had been privatized.

He said that almost 50 per cent of the admissions of St Joseph’s would divert to other colleges this year.

Prof Alvi said that the government teachers withdrawn from the denationalized St Joseph’s and St Patrick’s colleges had already been posted at different colleges and he did not witness any follow up of reported directive of the Sindh governor that en bloc posting of teachers in question be ensured and their SNE be kept intact.