PESHAWAR, Nov 25: The Education Testing and Evaluation Authority (ETEA) is planning to introduce a series of measures to make the test for admission to medical and dental colleges more transparent and foolproof, officials said on Friday. “We are planning to prepare the entrance test paper on the day of the test. The paper will be set by experts and then distributed the same day among students,” they said.
To do this, they said, the ETEA would need high-speed printers which could print 3,000 copies per hour, advanced computers and trained staff to restore the test’s credibility.
They said that all those taking the entrance test would receive an entry card at the gate, which they would be expected to display in the examination hall.
Since the card would be stamped and signed by the officials concerned it would discourage unauthorised persons from venturing into the examination hall, they said, adding that press reporters would also be allowed to watch the proceedings.
Three teachers each from Khyber Medical College (KMC) and NWFP University of Engineering and Technology (UET), apart from other experts, would perform supervisory duties in the examination hall.
Entrance tests were introduced in 1997 when the teachers of medical colleges expressed dissatisfaction with the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education’s (BISE) methods.
This year’s test had to be put off for over a week after authorities arrested more than 40 people in connection with the leak of a test paper several weeks ago.
Seven ETEA officials, including its executive director also remained under police custody for interrogation. The chief minister intervened which led to removal and replacement of its executive director.
This year, some 9,000 students took the entry test to fill 677 seats in six medical and dental colleges of the province.
Officials said that they could impose more such screening tests to help deserving and talented students.
“We will oppose any move aiming at doing away with the entrance test, because some vested interest groups are trying to do away with entrance test,” they said.
Officials said it was the ETEA’s duty to conduct the test and the KMC would be there to provide logistic support to the authority.
They said that results of the test would be announced the same day.
“We had thought of introducing entrance test after reports of open cheating and leakages of papers by students in the FSc examination, because the students we were receiving then at the medical colleges were extremely poor,” said officials.
Subsequently, the academic council of the Khyber Medical College had proposed entrance test for admission into medical colleges with a view to select the best available students to the medical colleges, officials said.
Officials said they were satisfied with the outcome of the entrance test, but of late the exercise has become doubtful and now “efforts are being made to plug the loopholes”.
“Like the BISE, influential people have also crept into the ETEA, where they retrieved the results of their choice. But, we being the teachers, could judge the capabilities of the student at the medical college”, said a KMC’s teacher.
This was the second paper leak scandal in four months in the city. Several students had been arrested in the third week of May and former chairman of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Brig (retd) Manzoor Iqbal Bangash, had been forced to quit his job after the leak of FSc Physics paper (part-II).
Sale of the entrance test paper had started about three days before the test. Senior police officials said that the paper had been bought from the ETEA on payment of Rs7.5 million that was sold to the students between Rs10,000 and Rs300,000.