Sindh’s new college admissions policy continues to haunt students, officials

Sindh education minister finally wakes up ‘to end the students’ suffering’

KARACHI: The system of online applications for college admissions that was introduced this year for the first time proved to be a complete failure. The ramifications of this controversial decision, however, continue to haunt the Sindh education department’s officials to this day.

Around 200 students who had managed to get through with good grades in their Matriculation were deprived of admissions altogether. Thousands more, who did receive admissions, faced issues due to the serious anomalies in the placement lists, confirmed Sindh colleges’ director general Prof Dr Nasir Ansar, who heads the 17-member Sindh E-Centralised College Admission Programme (Seccap) committee to oversee the process of admissions.

“We have rectified the admissions lists to accommodate the names of at least 200 students, who were earlier denied admissions due to omission of their names,” said Dr Ansar, when approached by The Express Tribune. “Two days ago, we set up 16 claim centres at public colleges where students can submit their grievances to the Seccap committee for rectification in the merit lists.”

On Thursday, however, when hundreds of female students had approached the Sir Syed Government Girls’ College, one of the designated claim centres located in Nazimabad, they were made to wait under the scorching sun for several hours outside the college.

“The college administration has closed the entrance gate and is not allowing us to get the claim forms,” claimed one of the students. Later, Dr Ansar had to arrive at the college where he faced misbehaviour by the college principal, Prof Dr Farhat Azeem and one of the teachers he identified as Gul-e-Rana, who refused to partake in the process. Dr Azeem claimed that she could not allow the male family members, who accompanied the students, inside her college.

On the other hand, Sindh education minister, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, finally woke from his slumber on Thursday evening and announced that he had ‘taken notice’ of the students’ suffering, due to what he termed were software issues with the online application system. He directed Dr Ansar to set up claims centres immediately, not knowing that they had already been functioning since the last two days.

On September 23, the education department had announced the merit list of computer science group on its official website for admissions to secondary schools in Karachi under the new admission policy. This was followed by the admission lists of pre-engineering and pre-medical group students on September 25 and the list of humanities and commerce groups on September 26.

Ironically, Seccap’s official website flaunts an admission advertisement by the principal of a North Nazimabad-based private institution — Model College for Girls — that was established only a year ago. The principal, Khurram Qamar, called forth the spectre of a crumbling public education system before taking upon himself this ‘moral responsibility’ to warn the students against the “so-called prestigious public colleges that are preferred by the girls of traditionalist, outmoded, and regressive mindset.” When questioned about the advertisement, Dr Ansar claimed he was unaware about it, stating that it was being run by the education department’s secretariat.

The online applications were introduced on July 27 by the provincial education department under the renamed and reframed policy, replacing the Centralised Admission Policy (Cap) that was introduced in the year 2000. However, only 4,000 admission forms were submitted online in the next 10 days.

Though the education department had later decided to publish hard copies of college application forms and extend the deadline till August 28, it could not reverse the wrongs.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2014.