THE medical and dental college admission test (MDCAT) conducted by the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) this year was full of flaws and errors. It is not something new, but the scale of the errors this year was unbelievably high. Unacceptably high.

Thousands of students failed not because they had not prepared for the test or were incompetent, but because the PMC could not manage to conduct the examination efficiently. After several days of protest by students on the outcome of the test, the PMC decided to analyse it and the task was handed over to the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. After whatever happened in the name of analysis, the students were randomly given extra marks. Some were given five extra marks, while others were lucky enough to get up to 20 extra marks.

The president of PMC said that the extra marks awarded to the students were decided on the basis of the number of ambiguous questions they had in their test. How did the PMC conduct a test which had up to 20 wrong/ambiguous questions? It makes no sense at all. Thousands of students had failed prior to the analysis, and were declared passed post-analysis.

The criterion of the medical test conducted by the National University of Medical Sciences (Nums) on Oct 4 was that a student should have passed the test conducted by the PMC.

Those students who were declared failed by the PMC did not take the test on Oct 4. On Oct 9, many of them were declared passed after the said analysis, but the Nums test had already been held by then. Their ‘pass’ status was no good in this context.

Who is responsible for this blunder?

Of course the PMC, but it is still not ready to take responsibility for its follies. This is not the first time that the PMC has ensured mental torture for the students. The commission will continue to do so if the government does not take strict action in this regard.

Muhammad Abdullah Khan
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2021