LAHORE: Hundreds of students with distinctive marks have criticised the changes in admission policy of the Punjab University that has made the transfer of applicants from one programme/faculty to another conditional to availability of vacancies or permission of the heads.

The PU admission committee, led by Prof Dr Javed Iqbal Qazi, on Jan 2 announced the new admission policy.

Previously, a single form of a student who did not get admission in the morning programme of a department was considered as an application in the evening programme of the same department or faculty without submission of any other application or form.

The new admission policy has divided applicants in categories of A (those submitting separate forms for morning, evening programmes in same faculty/department), B (one form), C (shifting of faculties) and D categories.

A category states that the shifting of admission forms for BS-1 semester and BS-5 semester for the year-2022 are allowed from morning to evening but they will be entertained only if they are on merit, the general merit list is exhausted and seats are still vacant.

All applications shall be shifted from morning to evening with the approval of the head of the department, dean of the faculty concerned and the chairman of the admission committee.

In category B, shifting of admission forms from one programme to another programme (within the same faculty or department) for BS 1st semester and BS 5th semester in the admission year 2022-23 are allowed but on same conditions mentioned in category A.

In the category C, the shifting of admission forms from one faculty to another faculty for BS 1st semester and BS 5th semester as advertised in the admission year (2022-23) are also allowed but on the same conditions as in above two categories.

The applicants seeking shifting of form from one programme to another must submit their applications to the head of the department by Jan 9, 2023. The admission form will be shifted from one programme to another (inter-department) only on the recommendation of the heads of both the departments.

The facility is applicable to only those students who have applied for admission in 2022 but could not get admission in the applied programme(s).

The applicants of category A will be given first priority, B will be given second priority and C will be given third priority.

For category D relates to pending application (status) of those applicants who could not deposit Rs500 admission challan form fee on or before Nov 18, 2022. Such applications are allowed if the general merit list of the specific programme is exhausted and these applicants will be allowed after category A, B & C in order of priority.

The students, who talked to Dawn on condition of anonymity, say the new policy is causing problems for them and they are not being entertained in the evening programmes because they submitted forms for only morning programmes. They claim to have got better marks than the students being admitted to the evening programmes.

Previously, the university, in its evening programme, was giving priority to those students who could not get admission to the morning programmes regardless of submission of separate forms for the evening.

Prof Dr Asghar Zaidi, who has got the acting charge of PU, has told Dawn the person applying for any of the programmes within date automatically gets the first right to take admission to the said programme. Therefore, he argues, the applicant requesting shifting of admission form from morning to evening or from one programne to another cannot be preferred to the student who has applied for a particular programme and submitted the admission form fee on time. He says shifting of admission form without exhausting general merit list can potentially deprive the candidates on merit who show their full interest to get admission to the particular programme.

Mr Zaidi claims that on his directions, a highly transparent admission policy has been implemented this year and not a single sifarish (reference) has been entertained. He says the step has been taken to ensure merit and block any unfair means to get admission at the cost of the deserving candidates.

protest: Pashtun Education Development Movement (PEDM) students on Wednesday protested against the Punjab University administration for not giving them admission against their reserve seats.

The students gathered outside the hostels and marched towards the VC office. They also lodged protest against misbehaviour of a teacher from the history department.

Progressive Students’ Collective also participated in the PEDM protest. “We express our full support to the Pashtoon students of

Punjab University who have been subjected to discrimination,” says one of their office-bearers.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2023