Medical and Dental Entrance Test Weightage To Be Reduced: Punjab

LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly Special Committee presented a report to waver off 50 per cent weightage assigned to Medical and Dental colleges’ entrance test, down to 10 per cent. This report was unanimously adopted by the Punjab Assembly as all the Treasury and Opposition members were in agreement.

 Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s MPA Mian Aslam Iqbal, persuaded the Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal, leading to the meeting of stakeholders and Punjab Higher Education Department (HED), to present a summary to the Chief Minister, seeking Punjab cabinet’s approval to approach the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to assume powers under the 18^th constitutional amendment and alter entrance test weightage.

The revised percentage was approved and sanctioned to immediate implementation. The day and date of the entrance test was discussed beforehand, to eliminate exploitation by private academies, who were said to be making a turnover of around Rs3 billion in a short period of time, putting massive financial burden on parents across the province.

PTI MPA Mr. Iqbal, declared that the special committee categorically recommended the change in entrance test weightage from 50 percent to 10 percent whereas, matriculation and FSc examination results’ weightage be enhanced to 20 percent and 70 percent, respectively, to authenticate the board examination system.

 HED officials stated that, specialized entrance test is a standard practice, around the world but, weightage of admission tests must be reduced to 30 percent – as a second tier of quality assurance. In case, UHS is asked to take the entrance exam soon after the FSc final examination, the university may be asked to include 75 percent questions from FSc Part-II and 25 percent from Part-I’s syllabus.