PESHAWAR: The frequent cancellation of entrance test for admission to medical and dental colleges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has delayed the academic session by six weeks.

The test was first scheduled for July 15 but it was cancelled due to weather conditions. The test was conducted on August 19, however, it was cancelled again because of paper leak. The September 23 was fixed for conducting the test but it was also cancelled due to rain forecast. Now September 30 has been fixed for the exercise.

Teachers involved in the Joint Admission Committee (JAC) for nine public sector medical and dental colleges of the province expressed concerns over frequent cancellation of the test.

Experts say test should be held after announcement of FSc exam results

“If the test takes place on September 30 and everything goes smoothly, we are already late by six weeks to start classes for the fresh students,” a senior medical teacher said. He told Dawn that the academic year would spell over to another session.

The Education Testing and Evaluation Agency (Etea) conducts test for admission to medical and dental colleges at seven centres in the province. Each student pays Rs1,600 to appear in the test.

The JAC, comprising deans of all colleges, has been trying to start the session between October 1 and October 15 to complete the academic year prior to summer vacations in June so that the students can get prepared for the examinations.

The committee has also been taking steps to start the sessions earlier and enable the students to complete their degrees in five years that presently take six years.

About 40,000 students appear in the test for a total of 1,100 seats in the colleges because the test was conducted before the announcement of the FSc examination results.

Experts suggest that the test should be held after the announcement of the results of the FSc examinations and only those students, who secured 70 per cent marks, should be allowed to take it.

Presently, even the students of first-year take the test to get experience for the next year, but the authorities don’t take any notice of it because of the revenue generation from the same.

A dean at one of the colleges said that the students, who secured lesser marks in FSc, could not get admission to medical colleges even if they got 100 per cent marks in the test. Therefore, only the students with higher marks should be allowed to appear in the test, he added.

“If we change the criteria for appearance in the test, the number of candidates would come down to about 10,000 that would be manageable even in the halls that could be used even during rain,” he said.

The JAC has simplified the admission process during the last few years but still it takes more than one month to complete the whole process. “We have decentralised the admission process with a view to facilitate the students and start academic session on time but these delays in the entrance test would adversely affect our efforts,” said the dean.

He said that government should entrust the responsibility of conducting the test to JAC, which had decades of experience to save time and money of students. “We have to conduct additional classes on Saturdays and other holidays to make up for the lost time due to delay in the entrance test,” he added.

The dean said that about 36 weeks were needed for one academic session. “There should be one central authority for the test as opposed to current situation where both Khyber Medical University and Etea are involved in the process,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2018