LAHORE: Feb 1: The Punjab government has decided in principle to introduce uniform entrance test to assess students’ aptitude for admission to all public sector general education universities from the next academic session beginning from September this year.

The entrance test will be conducted by the National Testing Service (NTS).

The decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Governor Khalid Maqbool at the Governor’s House on Thursday.

It was also decided that the entrance test, which was already in place for engineering universities and medical colleges, would continue as such.

The candidates, who will appear for the NTS’ entrance test, will be eligible to get admission to a public sector universities according to his or her merit position.

Earlier, it may be mentioned, all public sector universities were holding entrance test at individual level. Last year, the NTS had conducted a uniform entrance test for Punjab University and some other universities, which was participated in by around 260,000 students.

Considering the success in holding uniform entrance test, the meeting decided that all public sector universities would adopt National Aptitude Test (NAT) at undergraduate level from the next academic session beginning from September this year.

Explaining the methodology of the uniform entrance test, NTS director Dr Haroon Rasheed told the governor that separate NAT had been developed for pre-medical, pre-engineering and arts students.

He said the NTS would hold entrance tests in different cities simultaneously on July 15, Aug 19 and Dec 23 every year.

Explaining eligibility criteria, Dr Rasheed said the candidates having at least 40 per cent marks in their FA/FSc examination would be eligible to sit for the entrance test. Each candidate would be required to obtain minimum 50 per cent marks for qualifying the entrance test.

The merit of each candidate would be determined on the basis of 30 per cent weightage from the entrance test and 70 per cent from marks obtained in the intermediate examination.

Dr Rasheed said the NTS had fixed entrance test fee at Rs300, which could be deposited in any branch of Habib Bank Limited or Allied Bank. He said the candidates would be able to use application form published in newspapers or download the same from NTS website.

He said the NTS would also conduct Graduate Assessment Test for admission to postgraduate classes.

Speaking on the occasion, the governor termed the launch of uniform entrance test through the NTS a major milestone towards offering a transparent and standard admission system. He said the uniform entrance test would also spare students from appearing in entrance tests for admission to different universities.

The governor also directed the officials concerned to set up examination centres at district headquarters level for holding of entrance test by the NTS. He also asked the NTS to hold the test four times instead of three in a year to enable candidates who qualify in supplementary examination to get admission to universities.