The City Nazim, Naimatullah Khan has asked the secretary education, Sindh to maintain restriction on sports quota in colleges admission.
"I am not in favour of the inclusion of sports or any other quota under the Centralised Admission Policy (CAP) as it is the only merit based admission programme prevailing in the country. Support to sports and sportsmen cannot be allowed to become the basis of discretion which leads to corruption and nepotism."
The City Nazim made this statement in a letter written to the secretary, education & literacy department, government of Sindh. Referring to respective official notifications and letters on the subject, he pointed out that the CAP programme was initially approved by the governor of Sindh in 2000, whereas the quota was abolished by secretary education, Sindh in 2001 to make the programme effective and transparent.
He explained that the abolition of the quota was basically aimed to stop violence, favouritism and corruption in the city colleges. In line with the government directions, the CAP had been successfully adopted by the City District Government Karachi and implemented it strictly on merit basis.
After the implementation of CAP, he mentioned that the admission process had become totally transparent whereby 100 percent admissions were awarded on a single criterion that was marks obtained in the preceding class/grade. The CAP programme had remarkably improved the environment and results of educational institutions of the city.
The colleges, which had less than 35 percent results, now were showing 75 to 80 percent results, he maintained.
In support of his assertions, he mentioned that the provincial Education Minister, Dr Hamida Khoro was also in support of CAP. In this backdrop, he observed that it would not be advisable to break any hold in the CAP programme and allow 'Sifarish' and power culture in this regard.