0.204m sit MDCAT

Islamabad:Over 0.204 million candidates sat the Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) through federal and provincial public sector universities, said the Pakistan Medical Commission on Monday.

According to PMC President Prof. Dr. Noshad Ahmad Shaikh, 204,253 youth appeared in the test, including 203,791 in the countrywide centres and 461 in those of the UAE and Saudia Arabia.

The minimum pass percentage in the paper-based MDCAT is 65 for admission to medical colleges and 55 for admission to dental colleges. The candidates total 83,142 in Punjab, 46,229 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 43,994 in Sindh, 17,825 in Islamabad, 9,238 in Baluchistan, 2,718 in Azad Jammu & Kashmir, 645 in Gilgit, 240 in the UAE and 222 in Saudi Arabia.

The PMC president said the MDCAT was conducted in the following cities Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Sialkot, DG Khan, Karachi, Jamshoro, Dera Ismail Khan, Malakand, Nawabshah, Khairpur, Swat, Swabi, Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat, Bannu, Abbottabad, Quetta, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad, and Mirpur, and that he supervised the test in Gilgit, which was held for the first time.

He added that special assistance had also been provided to a few handicapped candidates who required help to fill out answer sheets. Prof. Dr. Noshad said it was the right of all students to fulfill their wishes and it is our responsibility to help them to fulfill their dreams.

He said the students were provided with the best facilities for the exam. Federal health minister Abdul Qadir Patel appreciated the PMC for 'maintaining the best standards for successfully holding the MDCAT. He said vice-chancellors and examination heads of all public sector medical universities also did a better job to ensure transparency in exams.

"The original task mandated by the federal government was to ensure that the MDCAT test is held in a transparent manner which could not be done during the previous regime due to shady practices now being investigated by the FIA. The current [PMC] Council has given these exams to public sector medical universities that proved that giving exams to private entities is controversial and raises doubts of students and parents,” he said.