Students, unhappy on MDCAT retake

Many feel that cheating will continue unabated in the popular medical school exam

PESHAWAR:

After more than a month of waiting anxiously for their Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) results, students hailing from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), will now have to retake the exam in light of the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) recent decision.

The popular exam, which serves as a filtering mechanism for admissions into medical and dental schools across the country, was rocked with a cheating scandal, shortly after the test took place on 11th of September, after which the release of results was suspended until an inquiry into the matter was concluded.

Given the irregularities, some parents and students preferred knocking on the provincial high court’s door for justice, which has now culminated into the PHC ordering a retake in 6 weeks.

However, not all students are happy with attempting the anxiety inducing MDCAT exam once more and are quite distraught.

One such student is Shahid Khan, from Peshawar, who tallied his answers with the answer keys provided after the now cancelled exam and is sure that he passed. “Those who were caught cheating should be given exemplary punishments but those like me who cleared the exam already should not be made to attempt it again,” remarked Khan, further adding that he had already spent a considerable amount of time and money at tuition centres to prepare for the exam and could not afford to repeat the process.

Seerat Anjum, a student from Charsadda agrees. “I tallied my answers with the answer key and I passed. So now being forced to retake the exam is just depressing,” regretted Anjum.

“I spent close to two years preparing for the MDCAT, it makes me anxious to think of attempting it again,” she added.

Concurring with Anjum, Farhan Khan, a student from Mardan, said that since he belonged to a poor family, all of their hopes were pinned on him passing the exam. “Passing the MDCAT is a ticket for a good future for my family and myself. However, it appears that the cheating of a few will cost us our future,” sobbed Khan.

Parents are similarly frustrated that their children will have to attempt the exam again. Watan Jehan, a parent from Shangla, while talking to The Express Tribune criticised the Education Testing and Evaluation Agency (ETEA), which is responsible for conducting the exam. “Every year we hear that the MDCAT has been compromised. If the ETEA cannot handle such a mega test, then they should stop conducting it,” said Jehan, further adding that students and their parents were being made to suffer for the agency’s incompetence.

“Who will make sure that there is no cheating this time around?” angrily questioned Jehan. Fakhr-e-Alam, another parent, concurring with Jehan’s sentiments, simply stated: “This is just unfair to our children.”

Caretaker Minister for Information, Feroz Jamal Kakahel, when asked about plans to prevent cheating in the retake of the MDCAT, said that the government had left no stone unturned in catching those involved in leaking the first exam and would implement better safeguards. “We made more than 200 arrests and arrested the main suspect from District Karak. Rest assured, we will not let anyone play with the futures of our students,” said Kakahel while talking to The Express Tribune.

On the other hand, Abbas Sangeen Khan, the lawyer who argued for the MDCAT to be retaken, expressed his happiness with the decision, and told The Express Tribune that “this is the best possible outcome from the whole situation.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2023.