KARACHI, Feb 15: Karachi University’s practice of delivering admit cards for examinations at the eleventh hour seems to have become a source of mental and physical agony for medical college students in the city.

According to the students of the Dow Medical College and the Sindh Medical College, the delayed delivery of admit card to the third-year students, who are to appear in their second professional MBBS examinations on the campus in the afternoon on February 17, is nothing but the failure of administration.

The students of the two colleges had to suffer a lot in the last week of January for the acquisition of the MBBS (Part-A) examinations’ cards as well. In the case of SMC students the admit cards were delivered on January 27 in the morning, the day when the examination commenced, while the DMC students’s were delivered cards only on the last working day before the examinations.

The episode is being repeated again. Anyhow the DMC students were delivered the second prof examination’s admit cards on Saturday, while about 325 SMC students have been asked to come on Monday morning, students claimed.

It was learnt that the two colleges had been able to submit the examinations forms only a couple of days before the examinations. A senior university official claimed that both DMC and SMC submitted the forms on Friday and the examination departments started delivering the admit cards to the colleges from Friday.

Students at the SMC said that they waited for the college staff that was supposed to return with admit cards from the university, till late in the evening, but to no avail. The SMC principal or any other official was not available for comments.

The students said that some ongoing tussle between the college authorities and university officials was responsible for the state of affairs, and in the name of precautionary measures colleges were consuming maximum time and the university’s examination section was trying to cover up the mess on the pretext that it did not want to deprive any deserving person of the opportunity to appear in examination.

A senior official at one of the government medical colleges said they had to retain the forms for maximum time only because some candidates turned up late.

Senior academics criticized the university for not adhering to any schedule, particularly in the case of medical colleges. In the past the university used to receive examination forms one week before the commencement of the medical examinations and cards were issued to students even on the day of examinations on the recommendations of colleges, they claimed.

University official said that despite all efforts to streamline things, the university was unable to give an exact schedule and implement it. He said the admit cards of SMC students were finally handed over to the college staff on Saturday afternoon.

Perturbed students and their parents said that they had been given to understand that cards at the SMC would be distributed on February 17, which was a highly painful for them. The authorities could have distributed the cards on Sunday in order to save them from extra fatigue and risks on the date of examinations, added many of the parents. They urged the SMC principal and the controlling authority of the college to intervene and order immediate delivery of cards.

Some parents, however, said it was the duty of the university to give sufficient and peaceful time for preparation before the examination.