A group of students who intend to take admission in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in various departments/institutes and constituted colleges of the Punjab University (PU) on Tuesday held a demonstration in front of vice-chancellor's office to protest what they called poor arrangements made for receiving admission forms.
The Punjab University management had assigned the task to National Testing Service (NTS) for conducting entry tests for the students who want to take admission in the Punjab University departments, institutes and constituted colleges. The NTS had set up only one centre at Model Town for the collection of entry test forms. On Tuesday, a group of students started breaking the window glasses of the centre, when the officials deputed at the centre roughly treated them. The protesting students also shouted slogans against the Punjab University administration and National Testing Service.
On Tuesday, a large number of students gathered in front of Punjab University vice-chancellor's office and started raising slogans against the university's administration. The students want to meet the vice-chancellor but they were not allowed. The students started shouting slogans against the university administration.
Naziraan Bibi, mother of a female student while talking to Business Recorder regretted that there was no counter for the female students and they were also forced to queue with the male students. Quite a good number of female students failed to submit their forms.
When contacted, Punjab University Registrar, Dr Muhammad Naeem Khan said the Punjab University had outsource the responsibility of collection of entry test forms to the National Testing Service which is also being supervised by the Higher Education Commission. However, on failure of National Testing Service in fulfilling the assigned task, the university has taken over the task of receiving the forms so that students may not face any difficulty.
The admission committee after detailed discussion has decided to set up four centres, one each in Institute of Pharmacy at Allama Iqbal Campus, Institute of Administrative Sciences, Institute of Business Information Technology and Undergraduate department where four booths would be set up to provide and receive entry test forms from the students. Moreover, the admission committee has also extended the date of submission of entry test forms from August 10 to August 15, 2006 for the facilitation of the students, he said.
'We have made sufficient arrangements to facilitate the students, he added. These centres would start their working from August 9. The university administration would not allow any faction of students to do politics in the name of admissions, he said.
According to the Punjab University spokesman, the meeting that was chaired by vice-chancellor Arshad Mahmood decided that the university will conduct the entry test for all the departments except Institute of Business and Information Technology and Institute of Administrative Sciences itself and not through National Testing Service for M. A/M. Sc. and other Masters level programmes.
The National Testing Service (NTS) will take the test of B. A/B.Sc. (Hons) (Undergraduate) programmes only.
All the departments will conduct entry test for the M. A/M. Sc. on the time and date already published in the newspapers. The candidates will be issued roll number slips on the day of test. However, the roll number slips already issued by the NTS for masters level entry test will also be valid. The admission forms will also be distributed amongst the candidates on the day of entry test. The qualifying marks for entry test would be 40 to 50 for various departments.