MULTAN, Jan 31: The Nishter Medical College students have protested against what they allege double standards of their examination body, the University of Health Sciences.

As many as 15 students of the college, who could not pass the second professional examination in two attempts and are facing loss of one academic year in their career, told newsmen on Saturday that unlike other professional studies the medical students were provided only two chances to clear examination of an academic period.

They said the UHS held second professional annual examination in October last while the supplementary examination concluded in December.

The university conducted examination for the candidates of the Allama Iqbal Medical College (Lahore), Rawalpindi Medical College, Nishter Medical College (Multan), Quaid-i-Azam Medical College (Bahawalpur), Punjab Medical College (Faisalabad) and a private medical college of Lahore.

They said the students of the Punjab College had boycotted the annual examination, though the UHS had taken all measures to hold examination at the Faisalabad centre.

However, the PMC students took the supplementary examination conducted by the university. Now, the UHS authorities were assuming the supplementary examination as the annual only for the PMC students and had announced another supplementary examination to be held exclusively for them (PMC students) from March 9.

The NMC students said the PMC students were being given a third chance to pass the second professional examination, which was an injustice with unsuccessful students of other colleges as they were not being given this opportunity.

They urged the Punjab governor and the chief minister to look into the matter and direct the UHS authorities to provide level playing-field to all the candidates.