KARACHI, Aug 22: The University of Karachi on Monday decided to stop issuing equivalence certificates to students with O/A level background, said sources on the campus.

About implementation of the decision, a senior university official said that any date pertaining to closure of the existing facility would be given after certain exercise shortly.

The decision of doing away with the A-leveller’s equivalence award was reached at a meeting of the Academic Council of the university on Monday.

A source said that though there was no formal item related to the issue on the agenda, the council took up the matter while discussing, among other things, some proposals of the university’s equivalence committee. The council meeting was chaired by Vice-Chancellor Dr Pirzada Qasim.

At present, the university entertains A-level students and those doing their 12th grade from foreign educational institutions in regard to issuance of equivalence certificates.

A university committee, comprising deans of different faculties and some senior teachers, usually scrutinises requests by the students doing A-levels and then issues a provisional certificate, while a final equivalence certificate is issued by the concerned section of the Inter-Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC), according to another source.

Earlier, the IBCC used to receive applications for equivalence along with requisite fee at its Islamabad office, but for the last six months or so, it is running a sub-office in the premises of the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi, which collects applications for equivalence and dispose of the cases normally at Karachi, except those found unusual in nature.

In order to simplify the working and avoid unnecessary hassles to the KU equivalence committee, the authority now has decided to do away with the practice of entertaining A-levellers as it was purely a matter to be handled by the intermediate education boards, said a senior official.

A source privy to the Academic Council meeting said that the members were informed that since the equivalence centre of IBCC was now available in the city, it would be in the fitness of things that the KU stopped issuance equivalence to A-levels students.

Sometime the applicants did not approach the proper authority for long after getting a provisional certificate from the university and would continue studying in higher classes without having any formal or final documents, which created complications, added the source.