There was a time when passing intermediate/HSC (High School Certificate) with good grades could get you into a public university. Not any more. The standard of testing at HSC level is presumed to have fallen so low that not even public universities are accepting candidates on sole basis of passing HSC exams. The requirement of a separate entrance test in addition to passing HSC exams has now become a de-facto requirement by public universities in Pakistan.
In most universities, HSC grades still get some weightage when calculating the total acceptance criteria but a good grade in HSC alone is not sufficient.
My question is what is the purpose of spending so much time, money and effort on conducting HSC exams? Now a student has to do hardwork in HSC exams and once those exams are over, they have to prepare again for entrance exams to several universities they intend to apply. Don’t you think it is an added and unnecessary burden on students to pass all these extra entrance exams?
A counter argument can be made that if a student prepares for HSC exams in letter and spirit i.e. by understanding the concepts and not by ‘rattafication’ (memorizing) then he/she can pass any entrance exam. That is true and I agree with that argument. But then my counter argument would be to improve on testing method at HSC level. Make all HSC exams MCQ type where ‘rattafication’ will not help. Today the criteria of passing HSC exams is memorizing long descriptive answers, which do no help a candidate in any entrance exam.
The situation has now reached a point where there is a perception that those universities which do not conduct entrance test are below standard. Therefore 2nd or 3rd-tier public universities and colleges are also in the business of conducting their own Entrance exams because they don’t want to appear as having lower acceptance criteria.
For the past few years I’ve also noticed a trend of commercialization and politization of Entrance exams. Whole new institutions of private coaching have sprung up across Pakistan which guarantee you success in all kinds of entrance exams. I’ve also noticed the trend where student wings of notorious political parties conduct practise/mock exams for candidates to public universities. One reason that prompted me to write this post was that today I even saw a statement from a political leader where he has demanded to standardize the university entrance exams all over Pakistan. Good demand, but my point is why don’t we reform the insitution of HSC boards and exams instead of creating more and more roadblocks for students.
Below I want to summarize few arguments for and against Entrance Test to the public universities.
Arguments For Entry Exams to Universities:
1. HSC exams and their marking criteria are not consistent across the country. HSC results differ by huge margin from board to board and region to region.
2. HSC exams are prone to corruption and cheating.
3. HSC exams test a person’s memory and not concepts. e.g. descriptive questions on which marking is also qualitative (read as “depends on the mood of an examiner”) and not quantitative.
4. Centralized exams are a worldwide norm e.g. SAT, GRE, GMAT etc scores have weightage when admission is sought to Universities in the Western Hemisphere.
5. If a student goes through HSC curriculum by learning concepts then he/she should be able to pass all entry exams with minimum effort.
Arguments Against Entry Exams to Universities:
1. It renders the whole institution of Intermediate (HSC) boards country-wide useless and meaningless. I would even go as far as saying that it is like wasting 2 years of students.
2. Monetary burden on students who pay examination fees at HSC boards and then for individual entry exams at universities. Conducting entrance exams has almost become means for extra income for the universities.
3. Psychological burden on students. At first the students have to do two years of hard study at HSC level only to know before hand that it alone won’t be enough to get them into a university.
I concede that my arguments against entrance Exams are lesser in number than those which are for entrance exams. But I believe my ‘against’ arguments have more weight. If I were a student going thorugh two years of rigorous HSC Studies, I want that exercise to be worthy enough to atleast get me to next level of education.
I would be willing to prepare for a different (reformed) type of HSC testing where my concepts are tested and not my memory. I will be happily going through this 2 year of hardwork, if I know it is worth something.
The photo above shows a self assessment test being conducted by a student wing of a political party in Hyderabad. This is for preparing students for the entrance test to Sindh University, Jamshoro.
To conclude this post I want to say that in my opinion HSC boards and their exams should be reformed so that their results are worthy of admissions to public universities. Entry exams conducted by public universities on their own should be abolished.
What do you think?
Photo Credits: Associated Press of Pakistan
Some comments from the ATP Facebook Page:
– “yes there should be……”
– “YES!!!”
– “yes off course there should be, as where there is no exam there admissions are merely on corruption”
– “NO…. nvr”
– “entry test is also almost currpted no way out…..”
– “No doubt! =)”
– “YES”
– “The basic purpose of entry test have died”
– “SSC/HSSC ke different standards aur corruption.. entry test ke beghair dakhle ka matlab sab jaantey hain”
– “but agar entry test hi currupt hojay to phr kya kren ge..???”
– “yes. statistics have shown that students who attain high marks in the board exams fail to get high marks in entry tests. plus if you go to the rural areas of our country and some places in sindh, cheating in exams is very common so they get an unfair advantage. i think the entry tests are a good way to find out the true potential of the student. Also since these entry tests are based on MCQ type questions, they give u a better result than board papers which makes u write pages after pages that are not read by the examiner.”
– “Yes!”
– “Yes ! but its should be separate of each university…..or separate of each department…..”
– “Nopes,Not at all, if yes then there is no need of Intermediate exams. Evident case is medical colleges test. Every year the Govt. medical colleges seats reduced but have no effect on private medical colleges. They totally killed the merit.”
Hai Saheb, I am changing the topic but do you still remember the difference between AC and DC ceiling fans? I have not seen DC ceiling fans and I don’t think i can tell the difference by the looks or sounds of it either except DC fan must be battery powered? or had an AC-DC converter circuit?
Yousuf, you have a valid point where you say: “entrance exam not only gives capable students a 2nd chance but also provides a way to filter out flukes. ”
While i can agree to your ‘second chance’ point, I would argue against ‘flukes’ by saying that, 10 to 12 subject exams in HSC should filter out flukes anyways ie. by stopping cheating and by making questions MCQs instead of descriptives.
I think it’s the sheer number of students who graduate from HSC and find a small no of universities to apply to. Now we all know that quality and uniformity of HSC exams are debatable so even if these are reformed, the problem of shortage of universities would persist. The competition would still be fierce for getting admission based simply on HSC numbers just like SSC exams where everyone put their all hopes on getting admission in adamjees and DJs. And it gives great heartburn if you miss out on admission based on just one mark (I’ve suffered it after SSC). So an entrance exam not only gives capable students a 2nd chance but also provides a way to filter out flukes.
What they can do is make the tests standardized just like SATs and GREs and base the test on analytical, verbal and arithmetic abilities at undergrad level. Weightage could be shared between marks attained in science subjects at HSC and those from the standardized test.
In 1962, I had to take a written and oral examination to get int0 the engineering college in Karachi. I thought then and still do that it was useless. I still remember the oral examination part. The NED principal at that time took the oral examination. His favorite question was about the difference in the AC or DC ceiling fans. I was 9th applicant selected by the HSC grade. By the time my turn came, I knew all about this question from the first 7 candidates who were all my classmates from DJ college, and answered the question as expected. In the end it did not make any difference in order of admission, our ranking remained the same.