PESHAWAR: Thousands of candidates took a sigh of relief on Sunday as they appeared in the entrance test for admission to the public and private medical and dental colleges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the test was postponed twice and cancelled once during the last three months.

The test was held amid tight security and students were allowed to enter the examination centres after thorough body search.

Despite the orders of Peshawar High Court to IGP Salahuddin Mehsud to install mobile phone jammers at the examination centres to block the leakage of the paper, police failed to install the jammers at the examination centres established in Kohat, Mardan and Malakand, sources said.

They said that three mobile phone jammers were provided to the officials concerned in Peshawar but those were not functioning properly.

The entrance test was conducted by Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (Etea) at seven centers across the province. The centres for the test were established at Islamia Collegiate School Ground Peshawar, Haripur University Haripur, Grassy Ground Saidu Sharif Swat, Gomal Medical College new building Dera Ismail Khan, Abdul Wali Khan University Garden Campus Mardan, Cadet College Kohat and Malakand University Chakdara Lower Dir.

A total of 38,065 candidates including 23,461 boys and 14,604 girls appeared in the test, according to a statement issued by Khyber Medical University.

The results of the test will be announced within 24 hours and will be available on the websites of KMU and Etea. The results will also be communicated to the candidates individually via SMS on their mobile phones.

According to the statement, 10,000 candidates appeared at Islamia Collegiate School Ground Peshawar, 5,402 students at Haripur University, 5,407 at Grassy Ground Saidu Sharif Swat, 3,776 at Gomal Medical College, 6,794 candidates at Abdul Wali Khan University, 3,251 at Cadet College Kohat and 3,435 at Malakand University.

KMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Arshad Javaid while talking to journalists at Islamia Collegiate centre expressed his satisfaction over the arrangements for the test.

He said that keeping in mind the large number of candidates and to avoid logistic and managerial issues as well as to conduct the test in smooth and transparent manner, the number of test centres was increased from four to seven.

The first Etea test for admission to medical and dental colleges in the province was scheduled for July 15 but it was postponed till August 19 due to heavy rain in some areas.

Initially, the test was scheduled to be held on July 15 but it was cancelled due to rain in some areas and new date of August 19 was fixed for the purpose.

The test did take place on August 19 but it was later cancelled due to paper leak. Then September 23 was announced as new date for the test that was also postponed after forecast of rain in several areas. The test finally took place on Sunday.

The frequent changes of the dates for the test also caused stress among students. Now the academic year of the students would start with a delay of six weeks.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2018