KARACHI: Lawmakers belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement on Tuesday filed an adjournment motion in the Sindh Assembly to discuss the centralised admission policy in Karachi colleges.

The adjournment motion, which was addressed to the speaker through the secretary of the assembly, was filed by Syed Sardar Ahmed, the parliamentary party leader of the MQM. Other signatories to the motion included MPAs Khwaja Izhar-ul-Hasan, Adnan Ahmad, Sumita Afzal and Kamran Akhtar.

It was pointed out in the motion that the centralised admission policy, in force since 2000, had been drastically changed in 2014, whereby students seeking admission were required to apply through internet, which was not only a cumbersome procedure but had been devised without consulting parents, teachers or the MPAs concerned.

The matter, the motion recalled, had come under discussion in Aug 2014 during a meeting between the education minister and an MQM delegation in which the former assured the delegates that the matter would be considered favourably and the students would not be inconvenienced by this procedure. But no review was made of this new procedure, it added.

In view of the complicated procedure, a very large number of students failed to apply for admission on time. It said that the classes had not been started and due to an inordinate delay the students had already lost their one precious month.

“It is, therefore, proposed to discuss this important matter in the first sitting of the next session by adjourning the business of the house so as to resolve the issue to save the precious year of thousands of the students,” reads the motion.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2014