ISLAMABAD - Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University successfully conducted first Medical Colleges Admission Test in the capital without outsourcing any services and utilising its own capacity, Controller Examination SZABMU Dr Tariq Iqbal said on Monday.
Dr Tariq Iqbal said that the university in its maiden attempt successfully held the entry test on August 25 in limited time given after the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) announced new test policy.
He said that SZABMU had a credit on its part that it did not outsource any services of conducting the test like other universities who conducted the test on the same date.
University of Health Sciences and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government also held the MCAT on same date, while National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) will conduct the test of September 1st.
He said that the entire management from collecting test fee to issuance of the roll number slips was also done by the SZABMU.
“Despite have limited human resource in examination department the university managed preparation of the questionnaire and conducting of exam,” he said. Dr Tariq said that SZABMU took all education boards’ services in developing question bank for conducting the test, while subject specialist teachers prepared the test.
“The exam was prepared in bits and pieces and no one was aware of the other’s task to keep the secrecy of the teat,” he said.
He said that around 11,000 students were registered for the entry test; 7,000 submitted the forms and around 6,000 students appeared in the exam. He added that 6,000 students appeared in exam against 900 seats available in federal medical colleges which mean the merit will remain high.
He also said that number of students would have been around 25,000 in federal capital if the test was not conducted on the same day with UHS and Khyber Medical University.
Informing about the result, he said that the answer key was uploaded on same day evening and final result from university will be declared within 24 to 48 hours.
He said that no complaint regarding ‘credibility’ of the test has been recorded from any corner as it was held in a transparent way.
About the quota system in Federal Medical and Dental College (FMDC) he said that federal has only one public sector medical college (FMDC) and seven are private colleges.
He said that every college admits 100 students in fresh batch and seats are divided into provinces and other territories. Details said FMDC had 6 seats on open merit, 38 Punjab, Sindh 15, KP 9, Balochistan 5, Gilgit-Baltistan 2, FATA 2, AJK 2, ICT 10, FGE 9 and disable quota 02.
He suggested that after 18th amendment students of federal city should have maximum seats in the FMDC as the candidates from provinces already have chances of taking admission in provincial medical college.
He said that arrangement of venue of the test is a difficult task but SZABMU instead of utilizing resources on private place, conducted it at International Islamic University (IIU) where all students were accommodated.
Dr Tariq said that students and parents had reservation on PMDC policy of conducting the test with different pattern on same date by all universities as students didn’t have chance to appear in other provinces.
He said that however, the PMDC announced that the result of the candidate appeared in the test of one university will be accepted in other university also.
