KARACHI, Jan 2: The Students Action Committee of the Dawood College of Engineering and Technology (DCET) boycotted examination on Wednesday in protest against the vice chancellor’s new policy of granting admission to students on self-finance seats.

The students’ committee also held a protest demonstration during which they blocked the New M.A. Jinnah Road in front of the college and burnt tyres. The students demanded that new admission tests be held for self-finance seats and alleged that the acting principal of DCET, Dr Mohammad Ali Sheikh, the vice chancellor of the Sindh Madressatul Islam University, was running the college according to his personal whims.

When contacted, Dr Sheikh said that the DCET had 100 self-finance seats and only 21 students had applied for admission to those seats. For the remaining 79 seats, he said, students who had already passed the admission test were preferred and had been asked to submit a pay order of Rs400,000 per student. A few people had been agitating against this policy, he added.

Meanwhile, according to a press release issued by the DCET, the college management met on Wednesday.

The meeting presided over by Dr Sheikh was informed that only 24 students had cleared the test against 100 seats reserved for the self-finance scheme while more than 1,200 students were waiting for the merit list to get admission to regular seats. It was decided in the meeting that students who were on the waiting list after passing the admission test would be given priority for self-finance seats if they desired. According to the press release, the meeting decided that 79 vacant seats under the self-finance scheme would be divided equally into rural and urban categories and admissions would be granted to students on the waiting list of both rural and urban categories. It was decided that no new admission test would be held under the self-finance scheme, it added.—PPI