KARACHI, Jan 20: A meeting of the Karachi University (KU) academic council on Thursday decided to continue with its four-year BS (bachelor of studies) programme.

Presided over by KU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui, the meeting thoroughly discussed the issues relating to the BS as well as the Masters and PhD programmes.

It is worth mentioning here that a KU pro-vice-chancellor had recently written to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) asking for the restoration of the old Honours and Masters programmes in the morning classes citing financial and administrative difficulties in running the new programmes introduced on the recommendation of the commission.

The HEC had reportedly refused to support any such move.

The KU academic council has now decided to continue with the new programmes in the morning session.

The meeting agreed that KU graduates of the BS programme would be awarded a certificate, showing that their four-year education was equivalent to the old Masters degree, along with a copy of an HEC letter containing a similar text.

It was also decided that the university would create awareness through the media about the equivalency of the new degree to the old qualification.

The meeting also evolved a consensus on the selection criteria for the Masters and PhD programmes and it was decided that weightage would be given to candidates’ past examination and their individual performance in the KU entry test while departmental research committees would be responsible for all admissions.

A 10 per cent increase in the KU admission fee was also approved.

It was also decided that all PhD candidates would now be required to appear in an admission test.

The problems relating to the large number of additional compulsory subjects in the four-year BS programme would be sorted out at a later stage, the council decided.