November 30, 2008	Sunday	Zilhaj 1, 1429

KARACHI, Nov 29: A meeting organised by the Karachi University Teachers’ Society (KUTS) at the Staff Club on Saturday held an extensive debate on what they deseribe as the recent MS/PhD admission fiasco and demanded a review of the entire admission process.

Senior KU teachers participating in the debate severely criticised the university administration for bypassing all relevant statutory bodies while taking policy decisions and involving a private organisation to conduct the entry tests for the MS/PhD programme. They observed that the whole process lacked transparency and caused a lot of hassle and financial loss to the candidates, who had to pay double fee owing to the flawed test and mismanagement.

The teachers demanded constitution of committees comprising research supervisors at department level.

The participants, speaking on “MS/PhD admission policy and procedures: a lesson from errors”, deplored that the KU administration kept the departments concerned completely in the dark about the whole issue, and observed that this appeared to be the major reason behind the fiasco.

“The blunders committed by the administration one after another have made the university a laughing stock… there was no vision and no sensitivity demonstrated at any level,” remarked a senior teacher.

Referring to the chronology of events before the deans’ committee decided to acquire the services of the National Testing Services (NTS) for conducting the entry test, he recalled that preparations for the admissions were under way and the teachers concerned had also prepared test papers when “suddenly the entire programme was hijacked and all became a one-man show.”

Most of the speakers stressed the need for some mechanism to evaluate the eligibility of academic candidates, coming from diverse backgrounds, since the Masters and PhD studies were mainly based on research and required a lot of theoretical and practical work.

While some participants questioned the rationale behind assessing the academic qualifications of the candidates possessing KU degrees, there were a few who supported the old system for granting admissions provided that it was implemented in letter and spirit.

Prof Mutahir Ahmed, pointing out that some students with fewer marks in the NTS test got admissions and those with higher marks appeared deprived of the admission after the final list was declared, quoted examples from the past where some candidates got admission though they could not write even two sentences correctly.

Prof S.M. Khalid referring to the merit list held in abeyance by the KU administration wondered if it might be used again. “It must be declared cancelled in clear terms,” he asserted.

Dr Shakeel Farouqi demanded setting up of a liaison committee to address complaints against the NTS.

The meeting also criticised the administration for allowing the HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry to conduct another test of the candidates seeking admission to that institute, and called for a uniform test to be conducted by the KU for all applicants, arguing that most candidates who took the NTS test suffered because the questions were not subject-specific.