KARACHI, Oct 30: Students seeking admissions to MBBS and BDS classes in government-run institutions have disputed the credibility of the entrance test conducted by IBA on Oct 28, at three different centres in the province.

Talking to Dawn, on Tuesday, the students claimed that the testing authority leaked a majority of the questions included in the test beforehand. Except the portion pertaining to the subject of English, all other portions of the Oct 28 IBA paper were available with candidates who had taken admission at a coaching centre for aptitude-test preparatory classes, claimed a parent.

When contacted, an official at the Sindh health department said that the matter had been reported to the higher authorities as well, and due action would be taken within a day or two. The allegations by students and their parents seem serious in nature and the department wants to sort out the problem, if any, once and forever, added the official.

When contacted, sources in IBA admitted that complaints about the entrance test were received on Tuesday, and that the health department had also approached the IBA with the issue. However, any final say would come after a meeting between the health department and IBA on Wednesday.

It was further said that after initial inquiries, the health department and the IBA officials were of the view that the test conducted by the IBA would be held again at a later date which suited the health department. “We would have to go through the hassle again,” said a senior IBA official.

It has also been confirmed by the IBA that its 1999 entrance test paper was reproduced for the latest one, except for the English subject. The paper could have been stolen from a centre at Larkana and made available to students of almost all the coaching centres in the city, the source added.

The students who appeared for the entrance test claimed that questions given in the IBA paper were not different from the test paper distributed by the coaching centre. The pattern, sequence and type font were all similar to what the IBA’s latest question paper contained.

One of the parents said that the grievance of students about the leakage of entrance test paper had been conveyed to different authorities, including the Sindh governor and health minister. The IBA people, however, ruled out the possibility of any leakage of paper, added the parent.

One of the students said that 87 MCQs were taken from the # paper distributed by the coaching centre. About a dozen of the questions remaining were in sequence and similar to what the centre had distributed before the IBA test, added the student claiming that even errors carried in the IBA test paper were similar to what had appeared in the coaching centre paper.

On the issue that the coaching centre, in question, had distributed a copy of the 1999 IBA test paper, one senior academician questioned whether the IBA people were so incompetent that they had not even bothered to remodify old papers and kept the majority of questions unchanged, ignoring their MCQs bank.

Speaking on the subject, a person from the coaching centre mentioned that his institution had conducted preparatory classes for the test to medical colleges for the first time.

“We prepared the students from prescribed Intermediate books only and no dirty tricks were involved,” the person claiming to be from the management said, adding that they were happy over the feedback from students appearing in the IBA test.

When referred to the claim that the test paper distributed by the coaching centre was a copy of what was stolen by a candidate during the IBA test held in 1999, the coaching centre representative did not deny it and said that it might be so. He informed that till Tuesday night, no one from the government or IBA had contacted his centre on the “fraud” issue.