KARACHI, Oct 21: Restoring its previous three-year honours and two-year masters degree programmes, the Academic Council of Karachi University approved the varsity`s admissions policy for year 2012 on Friday.

However, it was decided that the existing four-year BS programme would also continue along with the three-year honours and twoyear masters programmes and students seeking admission to different departments of the university would have the option of applying for either of the two programmes which would run simultaneously.

The Academic Council, which met with KU Vice Chancellor Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui in the chair, decided that the number of admissions offered in the last academic year would remain the same while the seats allocated under different quotas, such as sports, etc, would be filled in a transparent manner.

According to the academic council`s decision, degrees to be offered by the university`s different faculties would be as follows: Arts faculty: Four-year BS (eight semesters), three-year BA Honours (six semesters), two-year MA (four semesters).

Science faculty: Four-year BS (eight semesters), three-year B.Sc. Honours (six semesters) and two-year M.Sc (four semesters).

Islamic Studies faculty: Three-year BA Hons (six semesters) and two-year MA (four semesters).

Management & Administrative Sciences (MAS) faculty: Four-year BS/BBA (eight semesters), three-year B.Com./BPA/BBA Hons (six semesters) and two-year M.Com/MPA (four semesters).Pharmacy faculty: Five-year Pharm-D (10 semesters).

The council also approved and incorporated some changes concerning the total number of credit hours and compulsory courses to be completed by students seeking admission in various degree programmes offered by different faculties and departments in the academic session-2012.

Accordingly, all students of four-year BS (eight semesters) programme would be required to complete 126 credit hours, instead of138 as allfaculties revised the total credit hours requirement of 126 by deleting four compulsory courses.

Giving faculty-wise details of the total number of compulsory/major/minor courses and total number of credit hours, a KU spokesman said that the total number of courses and credit hours in respect of faculties of Arts, Science and Islamic Studies would be 42 and 126, respectively.

However, no changes had been made in the number of courses and credit hours with regard to the faculties of Pharmacy and MAS and, as such, five-year Pharm-D would have 50 courses and 200 credit hours while in the case of MAS, there would be 46 courses and 138 credit hours.

`4,500 students to get admission on merit` The process of admission to the university for the academic session-2012 would begin in the first week of November while the classes for the fresh entrants would commence on Jan 2, 2012. A meeting of the KU admission committee was being convened on Monday (Oct 24) to finalise the detailed programme of admission in the light of the admission policy for the academic session-2012.

The director of the admission committee, Prof Khalid Iraqi, told Dawn that since the Academic Council had decided not to increase the number of seats for the academic year2012, around 2,500 admissions would be offered in the Honours programme and 2,000 admissions would be offered in the university`s master programme on merit.

Earlier, some members of the Academic Council recorded their reservation over the conferment of the university`s honorary doctorate degree on Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

Karachi UniversityTeachers Society (Kuts) President Prof Abid Hasnain moved a resolution seeking an exclusive session of the Academic Council for debating the issue of the university`s honorary doctorate degree conferred on the federal minister recently.

He said since the matter concerning conferment of the university`s honorary degrees was purely an academic matter, the role of the university`s statuary bodies should not have been bypassed while taking a decision about conferring the degree on the federal minister.

According to sources, the vice chancellor agreed to the KUTS chief`s demand that a meeting of the academic council would be convened to discuss the issue.

Meanwhile, a general body meeting of Kuts was being convened on Saturday (today) at 11am at the Arts auditorium to discuss the issue concerning conferment of the university`s honorary doctorate degree on the federal minister.