ISLAMABAD, Dec 6: A writ petition was filed with the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday seeking the abolishment of the National Testing Service (NTS).

The petitioner, Mian Ghulam Rasul Advocate requested the court to order the establishment of an institute under the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in place of the NTS.

The establishment of such an institute will eliminate the monopoly of any private institute, he maintained.

It may be noted that NTS was established in 2002 under the National Education Policy (1998-2010) and IT policy of the government of Pakistan.

The NTS, which is governed by a management committee, conducts tests and assessments for admissions, scholarships, recruitments and promotion purposes.

These tests and assessments are now a prerequisite for admission and recruitments in many prime public and private sector engineering, medical and other colleges, universities and institutions.

The petitioner contended that candidates who have studied Urdu and Islamiyat had to attempt the NTS test in the English language. Moreover, he added, questions given in the test were of controversial nature.

Giving an example, he said in an NTS test the students were asked, “Which media organisation is the biggest in the world.”

He said there were different standards for defining the size of an organisation and it depended on its size, revenue or the assets.

Mr Rasul stated that he also intended to get admission to the LLM course at the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) and as per criteria of the university had to pass the NTS test.

He said on the basis of the test the authorities of the NTS were charging around Rs1,000 per candidate besides wasting the precious time of the students.

The court was requested that any organisation should take their exam according to their own criteria.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Rasul said after the 18th amendment, Article 25(A) of the constitution had given independent decision-making power to provinces with respect to education and they cannot be forced by the HEC to admit students on the basis of the NTS test.

“If there is a need for constituting a national level service institute, it should be constituted under the HEC to eliminate the monopoly of any private institute,” he said.