RECENTLY, I applied for the position of supervisor in the Education Testing Council of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and paid Rs1,200 as application fee. However, despite the payment, I was one of the many applicants who did not receive their admit cards for the test.

Later on, the HEC sent the applicants a soft copy of the admit card through email. However, many people living in remote areas do not check their emails regularly, so they got informed only when the test date had already passed. In fact, there are people who still prefer to receive admit cards by courier, or postal services.

As such, if the HEC was trying to cut costs, it should have at least informed the applicants by a text message about the schedule of the entry test. Unfortu-nately, this lack of communication and failure to dispatch admit cards has resulted in much anxiety as well as frustration among the applicants who missed the chance to appear in the test.

I wonder why the HEC charged such a substantial fee from the applicants if it does not even care to send a hard copy of the admit card, or to inform the candidates by sending a simple text message to them. What was the purpose of charging a fee at all? It was mindboggling, indeed.

G. Mustafa
Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2024