KU departments flout varsity laws to announce postgraduate admissions

An investigation into the affairs of the University of Karachi (KU) Post-Graduate Admission Committee (PGAC) has disclosed a number of irregularities in post-graduate admissions 2012. Making mockery of the varsity laws, two departments and one centre of the faculty of arts has tested and interviewed some ineligible candidates and sent results to the Board of Advance Studies and Research (BASR) for announcement of final merit list.
The departmental research committees (DRCs) of the said two departments and the centre had tested and interviewed those candidates who did not fulfill basic eligibility criteria by overlooking KU laws that was approved by academic council.
As per KU law, a candidate could only be enrolled in M Phil/PhD in a specific department in which he or she has passed his MA/MSc/BS or MS/M Phil.
If any department wants change in the policy, it has to send eligibility criteria to BASR and after approval of the department concerned, changes could be made to the criteria. However, Department of Sociology, Department of Political Science and Centre of Excellence for Women’s Study changed the eligibility criteria and held test and interviews of ineligible candidates without prior approval of BASR.
These departments claimed that they gave chance to some candidates of the inter-related departments to sit in test.
The candidates of inter-related departments were also interviewed and their names were later sent to BASR for announcement of final merit list. Besides, these departments also allowed those candidates for test and interviews who had no link with their departments. For instance, a candidate of LLM was given admission to PhD in political science.
Talking to Pakistan Today, Department of Political Science Chairperson Prof Dr Nusrat Idrees said the department did not allow candidates of inter-related departments to sit in test for M Phil, but some candidates of related departments were allowed to sit in the test and interviews for PhD due to a shortage of candidates.
“This year we have received 60 applications for M Phil test and the DRC of the department has decided not to allow the candidates of inter-related departments to appear in M Phil test. Unexpectedly, a few candidates applied for PhD and the DRC decided to invite candidates of inter-related departments for test and interviews in order to run the PhD programme in the department.”
Asked about a candidate who had LLM degree and passed the test and interview, she said the varsity had declared LLM equal to M Phil, but when she was asked about link of LLM degree with political science, the chairperson was found answerless.
Centre of Excellence for Women’s Study Director Prof Dr Nasreen Aslam Shah said they had tested and interviewed candidates of 13 inter-related departments due to very limited number of applicants.
KU Faculty of Arts Dean Prof Dr Zaffar Iqbal said he had no idea about the developments. He said the DRCs had direct link with BASR and there was no involvement of dean’s office in the post-graduate admissions. BASR Post-Graduate Admission Committee (PGAC) Convener Prof Dr Shahana Urooj Kazmi also said she had no clue of the issue. She said BASR had sent letters to DRCs repeatedly to send their eligibility criteria for M Phil/PhD admissions if there was need of changes in basic criteria set by varsity. Not a single department sent proposal for change in eligibility criteria for M Phil/PhD admissions to BASR.
“We have complaints that there are some departments who violate eligibility criteria set by varsity and allow some candidates for test and interview with claims that the candidates belong to inter-related departments.