ISLAMABAD: Dozens of girl students of several government-run colleges of the city demonstrated outside the office of the Controller of Examinations of the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) on Monday, protesting what they called “faulty results” of BA and BSc Part I examinations announced in their cases.

“Out of 500 students of our college, over 400 were declared ‘fail’, some in subjects they never appeared,” said Rukia Bibi, a student of Islamabad Model College for Girls G-10/4 as other protesters chanted slogans against the QAU’s controller examination, Sardar Babar.

Rubab Akhtar of the same college alleged that “hundreds of brilliant students were deliberately failed”.

“I was failed in psychology, sociology and English, given 33 marks in each subject. That shows the QAU administration bungled while compiling our results,” said Kashaf Naeem. “I had done well in writing the exams but fell victim to the negligence of QAU examination office,” she insisted.

However, the university administration rejected their claims, saying they had no weight.

But acting Vice Chancellor Dr Aitzaz Ahmed agreed that there were problems with the external examinations conducted by the QAU. “I hope that with the passage of time we will improve it.”

Controller Examinations Sardar Babar said: “In case the failed students have any evidence of discrepancies in the results, they should visit my office and their genuine grievances will be resolved.”

According to the QAU official, the aggrieved students could also apply for re-checking of their papers. However, the protesting students said they cannot afford the hefty fee of Rs1,000 per paper for rechecking.

But insiders admitted that the QAU took over the rigours of examinations when the government-run colleges of Islamabad affiliated with the QAU in 2012. Before that all Islamabad graduate students were examined by the University of Punjab, Lahore.

While the office of controller of examinations of the university is said to be still struggling to come to grips with the task, the Academic Council of QAU has approved a proposal that the QAU offer private candidates to sit its examination system for the award of BA and BSc degrees.

“This matter will be put before the next meeting of the (QAU) Syndicate for final approval,” said Sardar Babar.

“We are only responding to requests from local people and politicians to QAU to start bachelor of arts and sciences programmes,” he added.

Published in Dawn December 16th , 2014