Private colleges benefit from delay in CAP announcement

Karachi: Like previous year, first-year students of the city's private colleges would have an edge over their counterparts of public sector colleges and higher secondary schools in terms of number of academic days as the process of admission of fresh matriculates to the government institutions under the centralized admission policy (CAP) could not be initiated till Friday although more than five days have elapsed since the declaration of their results.

Senior professors of some government colleges suspected that the delay in initiating the process of admission to first-year classes in the public sector colleges and higher secondary schools was aimed at favouring the private colleges, where admission process had already begun.

They said that it was surprising to note that the Centralised Admission Committee (CAC), whose task was to accomplish the entire admission process before the commencement of the new academic session for first-year students, had not yet been able to announce the centralised admission policy despite knowing the new academic year was scheduled to begin in the first week

of September while it takes almost one-and-a-half month to complete the admission process.

"Isn't it surprising that more than five days have elapsed since the announcement of the Secondary School Certificate, Part-II (Class X) annual examinations by the Board of Secondary Education Karachi but the CAC has neither announced the admission policy nor provided brochures containing admission forms to banks whereas such an exercise earlier used to be carried out a couple of days prior to announcement of the SSC examinations," remarked an associate professor of Govt D J Science College.

He said that at a time when the process of admission to first-year classes in the city's government colleges was being delayed, a considerable number of fresh science matriculates with good grades would prefer to get admission in private colleges of the metropolis.

A number of senior teachers of government colleges deplored that it was for the last couple of years that the first-year students of the city's government colleges had been having much less academic days as compared to their counterparts in private colleges of the city as well as the students of other cities of Sindh and the rest of the country.They said that the CAC had not yet taken measures to initiate the admission process in the government colleges and higher secondary schools and, as such the possibilities of short academic days for the students of public sector institutions of the city could not be ruled out this year, as well.

They called upon the senior Sindh minister, Pir Mazharul Haq, to direct the CAC members to expedite the process of admission to first-year classes in the city's government colleges and higher secondary schools so that their ensuing academic session could begin on schedule.