PMA for abolishing entrance test

LAHOREPakistan Medical Association (PMA) has demanded abolishing Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) as it tantamount to violation of principles of transparency and merit. 

“Accumulation of at least six billion rupees by the University of Health Sciences annually mostly from poor students and the alleged leakage of entry test paper during MDCAT 2017 on August 20 in complicity with private academies has rendered it counterproductive and the wave of concern among students and their parents demanded abolition of the entry test,” said PMA office-bearers Prof Dr Ashraf Nizami, Dr Izhar Ahmad Chaudhry, Prof Dr Ajmal Hasan Naqvi, Dr Aleem Nawaz, Dr Wajid Ali, Dr Iram Shahzadi, Dr Tanveer Anwar and Dr Shahid Malik while speaking at a press conference at PMA House on Thursday.

Terming MDCAT a technical, administrative and financial fraud, the PMA leaders said the entry test for admissions to medical and dental colleges had become obsolete and futile owing to establishment of foolproof system of inter-board paper checking, central marking and strict monitoring after elimination of booti (cheating) mafia at secondary and intermediate level. “On the other hand, the booti mafia is controlling the entry test right now especially with the involvement of private academies,” they alleged.

While pointing out technical flaws in the entry test, they said the students were asked to answer 220 MCQs in the subjects of Biology, Chemistry, Physics and English in 2.5 hours, which allows only 40 seconds to answer each question, whereas the questions requiring calculations take a minimum of 90 seconds. “The students are not allowed to carry calculators and they have to make calculations through traditional methods,” they said, adding that there were at least 27 numerical questions in Physics requiring calculations during the recent MDCAT 2017. “On top of it, the organisers of MDCAT leaked the paper a day before the examination to a private academy, which destroyed the norms of merit and transparency and deprived deserving intelligent students of admissions in government colleges,” they alleged.

The PMA leaders said MDCAT was neither scholastic aptitude test nor a professional aptitude test or knowledge and skill test. They also pointed out huge discrepancies with just 10 per cent weightage to two-year study of 9th and 10th classes, 40 per cent weightage to two-year FSc performance whereas 2.5 hour MDCAT carried 50 per cent weightage equaling four-year studies by the students.

They observed that UHS was conducting MDCAT each year among more than 65,000 students against the available of less than 5,000 seats in medical and dental colleges of Punjab, which amounted to deceiving as well as fleecing the students and their parents. “The nexus between UHS and private academies has turned into a mafia, which ripped off the students and their parents at least six billion rupees in the name of preparation and fess of entry test every year,” they alleged. “This situation has inflicted extreme mental torture to the parents and virtually made students psychiatric patients,” they added.

They believed that there was absolutely no room for such a non-transparent test in the presence of foolproof examination system in Punjab, therefore MDCAT must be abolished forthwith to stop injustice with the poor and hard working students.