Last year’s paper leak: Of steps taken to ensure transparency and apprehension of students, parents

PESHAWAR: After last year’s paper leak, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government particularly the Higher Education Department (HED has taken a number of initiatives to ensure transparency in the entrance test of medical and dental colleges of the province scheduled for August 25.

This time the entrance test would be held in air-conditioned halls and same day across the country. However, students and their parents and certain government functionaries are still suspicious about the role of Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (ETEA). The government has given this task to ETEA with almost no check on it. The students and their parents are particularly concerned after a paper was leaked in 2018. This time the government has decided to conduct the entrance test on the same day across the country. The government had ordered a high-level inquiry that reportedly found some people in ETEA guilty but not a single person was punished. The inquiry was later handed over to the cybercrime branch of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to probe the matter as Special Branch of the KP police lacked the know-how required for conducting such type of inquiries.

According to sources, the HED has taken initiatives to ensure transparency and conduct the entrance test in a “secured” environment. “The HED has taken steps to ensure secrecy of the paper right from ETEA headquarters in Peshawar to the examination centres. The district administration, police and HED staff would accompany ETEA officials to pick up the paper boxes from Peshawar and deliver them to respective stations,” said an official privy to the process.

He said Secretary HED Manzoor Ahmad personally coordinated with all officials and sought their assistance to safeguard the paper boxes. “For the first time the paper boxes would be transported to relevant centres in the presence of HED, police and ETEA staff. And the paper boxes would be placed in a protected place duly locked by ETEA and the district administration. In the morning, the place would be unlocked in the presence of HED, ETEA and local administration,” said the official. Last year after an initial inquiry into the paper leak, The HED made recommendations to bring transparency in the system.

The government has set up a coordination council with secretary HED as its chairman and vice chancellors Khyber Medical University (KMU) and University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar, and director ETEA as its members.

The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has also been included this time in the process to bring uniformity by conducting the entry test on the same day across the country.Earlier the students and their parents were concerned about the test being held across the country on same, as they thought the difference in syllabus and courses of the four provinces would prevent the students from getting good marks.

Khyber Medical University Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Arshad Javaid told The News that each province would set the paper as per their syllabus by following standards difficulty index of the admission board of PMDC.

Last year 4 per cent of the students in KP had secured more than 50 per cent marks. And in Punjab, 66 per cent of the students had obtained more than 50 per cent marks. The colleges in KP would have been flooded by students from Punjab if there were no restrictions. The colleges would need to first accommodate students of the same province.

This time there would be no negative marking. The paper will comprise of 200 questions, from four subjects, including English, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

Previously English had 20 marks and the remaining three subjects had 60 marks each. Since the successful students would study in medical and dental colleges, therefore Biology has 80 marks in the entrance test and 40 each for Chemistry and Physics while English has 20 marks. In the past, applicants were required to get 60 per cent in the intermediate examination. Now they would need to secure 70 per cent marks.

Also, the students would require getting 60 per cent in ETEA. However since the test would be held before the results of the FSc examinations, therefore all students can appear in the written exam. In KP, the government has selected certain centres including Peshawar, Mardan, Swat, Malakand, Mansehra, Haripur, Abbottabad, Kohat and Dera Ismail Khan.