PESHAWAR, Oct 20: Parents of students, who took entry test held on Oct 12 at the Qayyum Stadium for admission to medical colleges, have accused the Educational Testing and Evaluation Authority (ETEA) of committing mass scale corruption and demanded the authorities to order re-holding of the test.
Speaking at a Press conference at the Peshawar Press Club here on Monday, Shiraz Khan, Iftikhar Ahmad, Habibullah, Mohammad Faridoon and others accused ETEA officials of being involved in massive corruption and nepotism.
“Blue-eyed students were allowed to fill up their objective question papers from the correct papers, whereas the hapless ones had to face the wrath of the officials,” claimed Mr Shiraz Khan.
Flanked by a dozen male and female students, he said the papers provided to the students were unreadable because of misprint, that wasted the precious time of the students. Later, he said, photostat copies were provided to the students but the time was over by then.
The scions of the rich families, he alleged, were allotted additional time after the stipulated time was over, to enable them to secure passing marks in the test.
According to parents, they would also inform the governor about their grievances, saying the officials of ETEA had put the careers of their children at stake.
A girl student on the occasion said that some 6,000 students appeared for 330 seats in the Khyber Medical College, Abbottabad Medical College, Saidu Medical College and Gomal Medical College. Each of the students, she said, had paid Rs800. She said that the ETEA had become money minting machine for the officials, but there was no one to take them to task.
Another female student said that ETEA had been established in 1995 after reports of massive corruption in the intermediate boards came to surface.
The ETEA was meant to put brakes on corruption in the education sector, but its own position had become extremely questionable for the past several years. An amount of Rs500 was charged by the ETEA per student for re-checking, but no student had got relief so far.
Parents of the students also asked NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani to order the re-holding of the entry test and save the “able students” from being spoiled.
“If the higher authorities didn’t take any step aimed at redressal of our problem, we would start a hunger strike from October 22,” they declared.