KARACHI: Amid the growing protests from candidates, three key ministers of Sindh rejected results of the test conducted under the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) for admission to medical colleges of the province.

The authority of conducting the entry tests should be given to provincial governments, demanded Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho, Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and Education Minister Saeed Ghani while addressing a press conference on Monday at the auditorium of Sindh Assembly.

Dr Azra said: “The federal government has put the future of thousands of students of Sindh at stake. This entry test is sheer injustice to the students of Sindh as it was based on the curriculum of the federal educational board.”

Highlighting “significant irregularities” in the entry test and its results, the health minister said there were discrepancies in the lists of candidates’ names prepared for the entry test and results. The provincial curriculum was ignored while as many as 14 questions were “unclear” in the test paper.

Inappropriate arrangements, she pointed out, were made for the entry test; the first merit list was removed after the candidates reported massive irregularities in the process. The second merit list was full of errors and candidates were asked to fill in online forms to register their grievances, she said.

“It’s the responsibility of the provinces to conduct entrance tests for admission to medical colleges. The federation is violating the provincial rights. The PMC mandate is to regulate and maintain the quality of the health sector in the country and not to interfere in the administrative affairs of the provincial health departments,” she said.

These negative actions and interference on the part of the federal government would create many complications in health delivery services in the coming days in Sindh, particularly in rural areas, and the province would face shortage of doctors, she added.

Criticising the federal government, the education minister said the Sindh government had already raised objections against the PMC which was established without taking the provinces into confidence and “bulldozing” the opposition parties in a joint sitting of the parliament.

“Poor arrangements of the entry test have further justified our stance,” he said, adding that various universities had also filed petitions challenging the formation of the PMC in courts and the matter was still pending.

The ministers claimed that the Sindh government in the past had conducted “systematic and transparent medical entrance tests at the divisional level”.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2020