Universities in Punjab reject undergraduate aptitude test

The public and private universities across Punjab in Pakistan have rejected the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) decision to hold the Undergraduate Studies Aptitude Test (USAT) for admissions at the undergraduate level in universities all over Pakistan, writes Imran Gabol for Dawn.

“The public and private universities are conducting their own admission tests and do not need to follow the HEC testing council’s USAT,” said Dr Khalid Khan, registrar of the University of the Punjab. He said the matter was also discussed in the last academic council meeting and they did not approve of any test other than conducting their own tests.

The vice-chancellors told Dawn that the HEC had not consulted them about the USAT and they had come to know about this through newspaper advertisements. They said first the test was termed mandatory, but it was made optional after the reservations of a majority of the vice-chancellors. They were of the view that some people might want to get financial benefits and launched a centralised admission test for undergraduate classes. “It is a general test for all candidates having no specification of any disciplines like science and arts,” they said.
Full report on the Dawn site