PESHAWAR, March 9: Speakers attainding a workshop on education has stressed the need for making merit the main criterion of admission to professional colleges to provide a sound base for social and industrial development in the country.

The three-day workshop on 'Education testing and evaluation' was organized by the NWFP Education Testing and Evaluation Agency at the Archives Hall. Noted educationists from across the country spoke on the testing and evaluation of education, a system which was evolved in 1998 to promote merit in education and curb influences damaging the education sector.

They said the education sector, which provided a base for progress, had been in a shambles because of favouritism and nepotism. Prof Aziz Fatima Hasnain, Dr Waqar Bukhari and Dr Abdul Waheed spoke at the workshop. NWFP Minister Hussain Ahmed Kanju inaugurated it on March 7.

The speakers said affluent people had pumped huge amounts of money into the flawed examination system and manoeuvred seats for their undeserving scions in professional colleges in the past. The ETEA had been formed to play the role of a watchdog and stop malpractice in the system, they said.

They said the government should ask private colleges and universities to hold entry tests on campus for promotion of quality education. Multiple-choice questions should focus on concepts, they said.

Concluding the workshop, NWFP Education Minister Fazale Ali Haqqani said implementation of the principle of merit was the only solution to the ills of the society. Successive rulers had trampled merit under their feet and promoted nepotism, he said.

In the past, Mr Haqani claimed, ministers used to keep blank appointment orders in their pockets and sold those to undeserving people. He said some colleges lacked basic scientific equipment, which kept the students aspiring to become doctors and engineers deprived of practical knowledge.

He said the NWFP would not shift to the Aga Khan Education Board as was being pleaded by Islamabad. He said the NWFP government had spent more funds on the social sector than any other provincial government. Later, he gave away certificates to the participants.