Universities told to announce exam, admission policy in a week.

Byline: Kashif Abbasi

ISLAMABAD -- Apparently opposing the option of promoting university students without exams, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Tuesday directed universities to announce their exam and admission policies within a week.

'The purpose of examinations is to reward students for actions that will make them successful in their future lives,' said HEC Chairman Dr Tariq Banuri during a virtual meeting with vice chancellors and rectors of all public and private universities of the country.

He was responding to a question whether universities should promote students without any exam.

'Examinations and assessments are an integral part of the teaching process. Attempts to eliminate exams will have severe repercussions for educational quality and student achievement,' he added.

Attempts to eliminate exams will have severe repercussions for educational quality and students' achievement, HEC chairman tells VCs

'Only fake degree mills issue degrees and certificates without verification,' the HEC chairman said, contrary to the federal government's decision to promote school and intermediate students without exams on the basis of their previous year's results.

However, the HEC chairman did not support the proposal of promoting university students without exams, according to sources.

The sources said the meeting decided that there should be some mechanism to check ability of students before promoting them to the next semester.

According to a press release issued by HEC after the meeting, which was the fourth between HEC and the vice chancellors since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic: 'It was convened to reach consensus on examinations policy, admissions policy, academic quality, and the academic calendar during the virus pandemic.'

The meeting decided that all universities will announce their policies on examinations and admissions within one week. All attempts shall be made to protect the academic calendar.

The vice chancellors agreed to come up with their examination policies based on natures of examinations aligned with their respective feasibility scenarios and needs of students.

They agreed that HEC and universities had shared objectives as they wanted to save semesters, avoid disruption in academic calendar, motivate students to keep learning and address the issues of graduating students.

'The common sentiment among the academic leadership is that semester should not be allowed to go waste. There was also the shared...