One doesn’t need to be a sportsperson to get admittance into the University of Karachi: as many as 450 students were granted admissions to various departments in 2011 on the fixed sports quota seat, many of which were either on out-of-turn basis or better still, without any formal application or entrance test, Pakistan Today has learnt. The most interesting aspect of this admissions fiasco is that the KU Admissions Committee, the body responsible for overseeing the admittance process, was seemingly unaware but no one in the committee was ready to own responsibility. Among the worst instances of these out-of-turn admissions were discovered in the Mass Communications and Pharmacy departments – two faculties that receive thousands of applications for admission on merit basis.
As many as 35 seats were occupied in the Pharmacy Department against two fixed sports quota seats, while more than 22 students were admitted to the Mass Communications Department – also against two fixed sports quota seats. As many as 15 students were admitted to the Computer Sciences Department, with five students admitted despite not having submitted an application or even appearing for an entrance test that separates the chaff from the grain. KU Admissions Committee member Saleem Shahzad, while admitting that some 450 students were granted admission on the sports quota during 2011, claimed that the committee responsible for all admissions was in fact kept out of the loop.
“The admissions committee was separated this year from the affairs of admitting students on the sports quota. We only found out one month after it had happened,” he claimed. Shahzad claimed that the Admissions Committee met with Vice-Chancellor (VC) Prof. Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui, and discussed with him this serious situation. He said the VC also concluded the meeting that the varsity could not cancel out-of-turn admissions this year, and the management would try to avoid such unlawful activity next year.
