KARACHI: Over 400 failed students of engineering at the NED University of Engineering and Technology have expressed their discontent with new rules laid out for them by the institution regarding promotions to the next semester.

Speaking to Dawn, four third-year students — Mazhar Abbas, Waqas Sangi, Faraz Ahmed and Abdul Haseeb — said that earlier students were allowed to attend the next year’s sessions despite not having cleared all subjects.

“We could clear the subjects in which we failed alongside our regular studies but now we have been stopped from attending the new year’s session unless we pass the subjects in which we earned the ‘F’ grade,” said Waqas Sangi.

“There are hundreds of students at the NED, who may have failed in one subject or the other. Are they going to hold back all of us?” asked Faraz Ahmed.

When Dawn approached NED Vice Chancellor Dr Mohammed Afzal Haque about the new rules, he explained that they have to abide by the rules of the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC), whose accreditation team visits them regularly. “They check out our facilities and standards. If there is any deficiency they ask us to overcome it,” he said and added that over 400 students failed in several subjects were standing out like a sore thumb. It was something, which could not be ignored.

“The NED university, some four or five years back, had an annual promotion system but after that we switched to the semester system. For a while we have been following this semester system but in name only, not really in the spirit,” Dr Haque pointed out.

Elaborating on this, he said that the norm in international universities was starting an academic year in September/October or the fall semester. “But out here we get so tied up in the results that, realistically speaking, we begin the academic year in January or in the spring semester.

“A student who fails in fall can register again for summer or fall,” he said.

“If a student’s Cumulative Gross Point Average or CGPA is 2.0, we promote him or her, if it is 1.5, we promote on probation on the condition to clear the failed subjects. But if the CGPA is lower than 1.5, the student is expelled. It was not like this earlier as even students with less than 1.5 CGPA used to be promoted. As a result we have so many students in our fourth year who have failed their previous years and are still enjoying being fourth year students,” the VC pointed out.

“Now how many previous subjects can a student be repeating while continuing with regular fourth year classes, too? Five to six subjects are enough. So we are telling the students now to clear those subjects they failed in before being allowed to attend fourth year classes,” he explained.

“Still looking at the number of failed students we are not doing anything drastic. Out of a total of 294 who failed courses in the third year, we have showed consideration to some 172 to attend fourth year sessions as well while working on clearing the previous courses but those who failed more than three courses, we cannot promote,” he said.

“If you look at university rankings, the NED university at the moment, is even behind the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro. We can only improve our standards by improving the standards of our students here and focus on outcome-based education,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2016