KARACHI, Jan 4: Caretaker Sindh Education Minister Shujaat Ali Baig has stated that no decision has been taken to abolish the Centralised Admission Policy (CAP). The statement comes after the Council of Senior Professors alleged that a decision has been taken at the higher level to abolish the policy.

He said there is no such development and the issue would be settled in a forthcoming meeting as soon he returned from his visit to the interior of Sindh.

“The CAP issue was raised in the last meeting of the steering committee and it was decided that the policy would be reviewed in order to address the concerns of teachers and students,” he told Dawn, adding that there was always room for improvement and the objective of the meeting was to address complaints.

When questioned whether the minister, in the light of the committee’s recommendation, could abolish a policy which was introduced by a former governor, he responded in the positive.

It is worth noting that the said steering committee’s meeting in which the CAP issue was raised took place over a week ago and there was no hue and cry in the press against the decisions or the minutes of the meeting in the days that followed.

Commenting on the teachers’ reaction, Professor Iftikhar Mohammad Azami, General Secretary of the Sindh Professors and Lecturers’ Association (SPLA), said that there was information that the education secretary had prepared a summary recommending that the system be abolished as it had failed to serve its purpose.

“That is the reason why teachers’ associations are agitating now,” he said, adding that almost all members of the committee had opposed the education secretary’s intention to abolish the CAP.

“There was no logic in raising the issue now since college admissions take place in June-July. There was a lot of opposition, too, in the meeting when the education secretary presented his viewpoint over CAP, but he didn’t give others a chance to speak. This was one of the reasons why the heated debate was not mentioned in the minutes of the meeting. Later, some members had a separate meeting with the education minister and told him that this merit-based policy has been a success throughout these years,” he said, adding that the credit of introducing CAP goes to the then governor Mohammedmian Soomro and education minister Anita Ghulamali.

Appreciating the policy, he observed that it relieved the administrative and teaching staff of colleges from the undue pressures which they had to face at the hands of influential people,” he said. He also opposed the education minister’s opinion that he had the authority to repeal the policy and maintained that only a governor could cancel a gubernatorial order.

Recalling the days before the introduction of CAP in 2000, Prof Dewan Aftab of the Council of Senior Professors said that college principals had to face a lot of pressure in those day with the advent of the admission year.

“Teachers used to be under extreme pressure. Bribery and nepotism had reached unprecedented heights which could be gauged from the fact that reputed colleges were forced to enrol hundreds of students on sifarish,” he said, adding that a reversal of the system would kill merit.—FI