LAHORE: Parents and members of civil society have criticised the Government College University (GCU) admission policy for including a caste column in the admission form.

The applicants launched an online protest over the inclusion of a caste column in the admission form stating that Pakistani society was already divided in castes and including it in the admission form would aggravate the situation.

They said the university should remove the column of the caste from the application form for admission.

GCU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asghar Zaidi told Dawn that the caste column in the admission form was not new and it was included on the direction of the Punjab government.

He said it was not compulsory for the applicants to fill the column of the caste. He said the data would be provided to the government if it would ever express the need to provide caste wise detail of the admissions.

Talking about introducing the entry test for intermediate classes, Mr Zaidi said the entry test was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic as the boards of intermediate and secondary education (BISEs) of the province could not take examination of matriculation and intermediate classes.

He said the test was continued after the pandemic to maintain standard in admission while adding that 50 per cent weightage was given to matriculation marks, 40pc to written test and 10pc to interview.

He said the entry test was followed to get admission in GCU because the BISEs examination results had lost quality. The VC said one could not compare BISE Multan with Lahore and the federal board.

He said the people were creating misunderstanding about the entry test but they would ensure 100pc merit in admissions.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2022