KARACHI, Dec 26: The much-awaited revised merit lists of candidates seeking admission to the Dow Medical College and the Sindh Medical College were put on display in the early hours of Wednesday.
Hundreds of students saw the lists displayed at the main entrance of the DMC in the morning after being informed by some of the students and parents who had made a habit of visiting the admission centre to see the merit lists.
“Those were awful days. We heard a lot of contradictory information about the entrance tests all this while,” said a parent standing with her daughter whose name had appeared in the revised merit list.
A senior official of the Sindh health department said that merit lists at the other two admission centres in the province had also been displayed on Wednesday.
In all 982 seats, including 414 seats at the two government medical colleges in Karachi, have been allocated for the candidates applying on an open merit basis in the province.
However, there was no formal notification about the submission of admission fee and fulfilling other requirements. The dates would be given within a day or two, said sources at the DMC, adding that if any candidates had any objection on the list he or she could contact the principal along with concrete evidence.
The additional secretary (technical) of the Sindh health department, Dr Iqbal Ahmed Daudpota, said that the selection list had been put on display at Karachi and other two centres in the province while schedule for submission of fee and commencement of teaching for the newcomers would most probably be given on Thursday. He hoped that teaching would commence in the first week of January.
Due to the deletion of those allegedly involved in irregularities and changes in some results, following working and findings of a high-level probe committee of the Sindh government, at least 31 students had to leave. At least five B-graders of intermediate examinations, who scored between 33 and 38 marks in the entrance test, have been selected for admission to the SMC.
According to the merit list, the breakdown of candidates who have been placed in the final merit list for admission is as follows: DMC (total 246 seats); Intermediate A-1 graders 80 and A-graders- 162 and A level students 4. The SMC (168 seats); Intermediate A-1 graders 18, A graders 141 and B graders 5, and A level students 4.
Rabeeya Saeed, daughter of Akhtar Saeed, was placed on the top of the merit list with a total score of 86.03, which included 42.88 of the entrance test. However, she was beaten by Sara Tariq, daughter of Mohammad Tariq Saleemi, as far as marks secured in the entrance test were concerned, as the latter managed to get the highest 357 (44.63 per cent) marks.
Heaving a sigh of relief over the latest lists, students urged the authorities to expedite the remaining proceedings of admissions.
“The lists are out now. We all had to go through a lot of tension. Officials have completed their inquiry. These lists should be final otherwise there would be no end to all this,” a girl student observed, adding that “finally the deserving students have been rewarded”.
A couple of parents, as well as the students and parents who had come to see the merit lists, whose wards were penalized and removed from the merit lists on account of their alleged involvement in irregularities, told this reporter that they had been blackmailed by the IBA staff into paying huge money.
“They picked up our addresses and contact numbers from the admission documents and asked us to pay 50 per cent of the total amount fixed as deal money assuring a position in the merit list,” they said. They added that they had been threatened that if they did not pay the amount, their wards’ names would be removed from the final merit list.
A large number of students expressed dissatisfaction at the way the Institute of Business Administration had conducted itself throughout this process. “The IBA has lost its credibility because it failed to conduct entrance tests in a transparent manner,” they said.
A parent from Federal B Area said that if the merit list had been put on display on time, it could have spared students, as well as their parents, a great deal of anguish.
An initial study of the first fifty cases in the first merit list released on Nov 27 shows that entrance test marks of at least 33 candidates were increased due to the second scrutiny of their answer scripts. In nine cases, results remained unchanged, and in another three cases test marks were reduced.