UNIVERSITIES in Pakistan hold a single entry test for admission in medical and law programmes. However, such is not the case for admission in engineering programmes.
All public and private engineering universities conductseparate entry tests at different times and varying venues.
These tests are conducted from more or less the same syllabus of the intermediate level. Universities engage all their resources, such as space and employees (teaching and non-teaching) for conducting these tests.
On the other hand, each university charges a considerable amount in entry test fee per candidate. The candidates usually send applications to several universities and travel from rural areas to different cities, like Karachi, Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Nawabshah and Sukkur, to sit the tests. The majority of the candidates belong to lower-middleclass families and the financial burden is of ten unbearable.
It is only logical that engineering universities in a province should unanimously conduct a single entry test for admission in all engineering programmes to save the time and money of the candidates and, indeed, tolessen the burden onuniversities themselves.
The provincial government may assign the job to two main engineering universities, such as the NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi and the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology in Jamshoro.
