Online admissions portal leaves Sindh students puzzled

Education dept recently announced availability of online forms for admission to public colleges in the province

KARACHI: The online information portal created by the Sindh Education Department under the Centralised Admissions Policy (CAP) for admissions to public colleges for the session 2018-19 has left the aspiring candidates largely confused over the process.

The education department recently announced the availability of online admissions forms for students applying to public colleges in the province. The online forms, touted by the education department as a step to facilitate students, have only ended up increasing their confusion.



Announcing the start of the admissions process, Sindh College Education Secretary Lubna Salahuddin had claimed that the online forms would make the admissions process easier for the over 100,000 prospective students in six faculties, including 25,000 in pre-engineering, 19,000 in pre-medical, 39,000 in commerce, 600 in economics, 2,000 in computer science and 18,000 in the arts faculty.

The secretary initiated the admissions process for the current year on Friday by uploading the first form at the Government Commerce and Economics College. Speaking on the occasion, Salahuddin said that they would be flexible with the number of intakes in the current year and would likely increase the number if more students were to apply.

But the applications process has itself turned out to be a hindrance for aspiring candidates, who have been left scratching their heads due to incomplete or incorrect information on the website. The college education committee, responsible for first year admissions to colleges, has claimed to have uploaded all important information pertaining to admissions, including details regarding the merit cut-off marks for previous years and the current year's admissions policy.

Dozens of students who accessed the website for information told The Express Tribune that the admissions form on the website accompanies a prospectus meant for the year, 2017 instead of 2018. No prospectus for the current year has been uploaded on the website, indicating that the central committee for admissions has not chalked out any new admission policy for the academic session, 2018-19.



The candidates also claimed that cut-off marks indicating the required merit uploaded on the website are from 2016, instead of 2017. Students must therefore guess the minimum marks required for admissions last year. They have no clue to find out the required number of marks in matriculation to get admissions in their desired colleges. Some students also claimed that a 'College Information' tab on the web site, which had been functioning till Friday, had suddenly stopped working. After the suspension, the information for cut-off marks, though not valid for the current year, has also gone missing, depriving students of all clues regarding the admission merit.

No information for 2017 merit was uploaded until Saturday night. The eligibility criteria for admissions in 2018 is given in the prospectus and remains the same as 2017, but confusion prevails regarding the eligibility of admissions for candidates coming in from the GCE O' Level and Technical board backgrounds.

Moreover, students who have passed in the supplementary examination of 2017-18 have been barred as per the information given in the prospectus.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2018.