Sindh ministers reject MDCAT results

After months' long controversy, and massive discrepancies in the medical entry tests conducted under the supervision of the Pakistan Medical Commission, the Sindh government rejected on Monday the results of the entry tests.

Addressing a joint press conference on the day, provincial ministers demanded of the federal government to hand over the authority of conducting the test to the provincial government. The demand came in the wake of the controversial Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) conducted by the PMC.

The test was conducted without a national uniform syllabus, and massive discrepancies in questions emerged, with allegations that they were out of syllabus. Further issues were voiced regarding wrong roll numbers, names and locations of the candidates. This created a quandary among students and parents in all four provinces. Many parents and students have also gone to the courts to challenge the results. At the press conference on Monday, provincial ministers, declaring the official response of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government, said that there was no need for the federal government to have established the PMC to begin with.

The PMC, the provincial ministers claimed, is aimed at encroaching upon the powers of the provinces enshrined in the 18th Amendment. "There had been no issue in conducting medical tests while this authority was with Sindh," claimed the provincial health minister, Dr Azra Pechuho. "We conducted the tests at the divisional level through a transparent manner. No one had lodged such complaints [then]." Dr Pechuho, who has also previously criticised the formation of the PMC, said that around 150,000 candidates suffered all over Pakistan because of major errors in conducting the tests and the authority choosing irrelevant questions in the paper.

"Soon after the results were declared, candidates started crying because of the massive scale of mistakes in the data. Suddenly, the authorities undisclosed the result and even then did not provide an answer key for the candidates," said Dr Pechoho, flanked by Sindh Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and Education Minister Saeed Ghani. The controversy surrounding the formation of the PMC has multiplied manifolds since the results of the MDCAT for admissions in Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) and Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) programmes appeared in all four provinces causing hue and cry among candidates because many of questions were out of their syllabus and some were ambiguous too.

Candidates in Sindh had already gone through months' long turmoil as the tussle continued between the Sindh and federal governments over the formation of the PMC. "The Sindh High Court has also bound the PMC to make a national uniform syllabus before conducting MDCAT at an all Pakistan level," said lawyer Jibran Nasir, who has been representing students before the plea under hearing at the Sindh High Court. "This never happened [though], and tests were conducted, including questions that had never been part of the syllabus in all the provinces," said Nasir, speaking to The Express Tribune. The lawyer representing students and parents who have challenged the results in the court of law said that, "During the court hearing even PMC officials confessed that out of a total 200 questions in the test, there were 14 ambiguous questions - around seven percent of the questions that is."

According to Nasir, no one appears to be serious about undoing the controversial results to provide relief to the candidates, however. The case is still pending in court with its next hearing fixed for January 4, 2021, told Nasir. Meanwhile, at the press conference, Sindh Information minister Nasir Hussain Shah had further said that the formation of the PMC, as a regulatory body, is not even complete, but it the tests have been conducted under its supervision. "The academic board is highly controversial," he said, adding that conducting these exams and devising a syllabus made on identical topics must be the prerogative of the provincial governments.

Earlier this year, the Sindh government had announced the establishment of a Sindh Medical and Dental Council (SMDC) and had drafted a bill in this regard. Dr Pechuho had also made a similar announcement in December last year. She had also criticised the formation of the PMC in October this year saying that it would be a 'disaster' for the smaller provinces as it allowed private medical colleges and universities to admit students irrespective of their domiciled province. She had also contended that the bill would hinder human resources in the smaller provinces.