Delay in KU results: Admissions elsewhere may be cancelled: students

Professors disagree, want other universities to adjust their deadlines.

KARACHI: Danish, who after a tough competition with the best students of the city secured admission at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), is now worried that it might be cancelled.

A graduate of BS Economics from the University of Karachi (KU), he has yet to receive his results. “While the students of KU know the delay in results is the norm, the IBA people were shocked to know I don’t have my marks sheet from the seventh semester,” he said. Danish now fears his admission might be cancelled.

The second semester of the previous academic year at KU was often disturbed by chaos and riots that broke among several student groups. The bomb blast at the end of the semester further delayed the exams, and hence, the results.

Students in their final year are suffering the most as they are finding it increasingly difficult to plan their academic careers and comply with the admission deadlines of other universities they are applying to.

A student of Mass Communications, Hira, said she was planning to apply to the UK this year but can no longer do so as her result is not out. “January 15 is the usual deadline for any scholarship at the London School of Economics and for that I needed my full results,” she explained. Other universities, such as Cardiff University or London City University, often have a high percentage of applicants and those who apply early are always at an advantage, she feels.

If the degrees come out by June or July, as Hira fears, she will have to delay her admission applications by a whole year. “We cannot go and tell other universities to alter their dates because of us. We need improvements in our own system.”

Arshad, a student of BS final year, is uncertain if he passed or failed the exams and the delay in results is making him panic. “Some of the teachers have sent the marks to the semester cell without showing them to us so I can’t even be sure whether I have cleared my papers or not,” he explained.

KU pro vice-chancellor Prof Dr Shahana Urooj Kazmi called the students’ complaints “unrealistic” because the exams were held late and so the results will come late as well. “Don’t they live in the same city? Can’t they see the situation?” she asked.

Dr Kazmi added that the university has sent notifications to the heads of all departments to tabulate complete results by January 25. “This is not such a long delay and it’s going to be an achievement if we manage to deliver results by the 25th of this month,” she said.

Referring to students applying to IBA, she believed that “if they are really interested in keeping their students they will understand and extend the deadlines”. “Isn’t IBA located in the same city?”

Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat, a professor at the sociology department, explained that the delay in results is because KU has changed its examination systems thrice. “Till the early ‘70s it had an annual system, then from mid ‘70s they started the semester system and in the ‘80s they turned to the bi-annual system,” he said. Dr Burfat felt that increased workload on the teachers, caused especially by the morning and evening programmes, is delaying the results.

He dismissed the argument that the city’s law and order situation delayed the results. The teachers in KU live on campus and can check the papers very conveniently, he added.

(Student names have been changed to protect identities)

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2011.