PESHAWAR: Thousands of candidates suffered on Sunday as the entry test for the public and private sector medical and dental colleges was postponed due to heavy rain and storm in some centres, including Mardan and Haripur.

The Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (Etea) entrance test 2018, organised by the Khyber Medical University (KMU), Peshawar, was scheduled to be held simultaneously on Sunday at seven centres established in different cities of the province.

The centres were established at Islamia Collegiate School Ground, Peshawar; Haripur University; Saidu Sharif Medical College, Swat; Gomal Medical College, Dera Ismail Khan; Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan; Cadet College Kohat; and Malakand University Chakdara, Lower Dir.

Rain in Mardan, Haripur and Kohat disrupts arrangements

The entrance test was postponed due to heavy rain in Mardan, Haripur and Kohat, Etea managing director Israr Ahmed told Dawn.

“Our staff deputed in Mardan informed us early in the morning about the stormy rain,” he said. Similarly, there was also rain in Haripur and Kohat, but the heavy rain and storm in Mardan played main part in postponement of the test, he said.

Mr Ahmed said that in Mardan the windstorm uprooted all the tents and rainwater inundated the ground where the test was to be held.

He said that the test didn’t start at the scheduled time of 9am. “We waited for over two hours, but the situation did not improve for the candidates to sit and take the test. Finally, the test was postponed at 11:30am,” he said.

The decision of postponement was taken by coordination committee chaired by Higher Education Department’s special secretary Manzoor Ahmed. Other members of the coordination committee are MD Etea, VCs of the KMU and University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar.

Regarding new date for the entry test, a KMU official said that it would be recommended by the coordination committee in a meeting to be held on Monday (today). The committee’s recommended date would be forwarded to the caretaker chief minister for approval, the official said.

The new date will be communicated to all concerned on their mobile phones via SMS and through media while it will be also shared on the official websites of the KMU and Etea.

“The KMU staff should have apologised to the candidates for causing inconvenience and should have googled the weather rather than abruptly cancelling the test just when it was about to begin,” one of the parents told Dawn.

A total of 38,057 candidates, including 14,598 girl students, were supposed to appear in the entrance test at the seven centres.

The official said that though the administration and contractor had made their best efforts to re-establish the test venue, but due to continuous rain and muddy condition of the ground it was almost impossible to manage the required arrangements in even four to five hours.

In a statement, the KMU authorities said that the test was postponed due to natural calamity and there was nothing wrong on the part of KMU, Etea or civil administration.

It stated that due to the strict rules for ensuring transparency and maintaining same standards to assess all the applicants on the same yardstick, it was compulsory to take the Etea test at the same time from all the candidates.

As such, interruption due to any reason in a single or more centres will definitely result in postponement of the test in all centres, the statement said.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2018