The Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) has been asked to disclose facts about the experience and qualifications of the business it has chosen to conduct the Medical & Dental College Admission Test by a sub-committee of the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) (MDCAT).
It convened under the chairmanship of Shahida Akhtar Ali, Convener of the Committee, and requested full MDCAT records from the PMC for admission to medical colleges, as thousands of candidates had been denied admission due to erroneous MDCAT results.
Shahida Akhtar Ali, the convener, spoke about MDCAT and said that candidates were told to verify their results online. She also inquired of the Ministry of Health authorities as to how candidates in places without internet access were able to view their MDCAT results online two or three days following the exam.
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Candidates were chosen from the supplemental tests, and those on the first merit list were deleted, according to the Convener. She also raised concerns about the procedure and qualifications of the business engaged by the PMC to administer the online test. She stated that the system is flawed and that many applicants have lost a year as a result of it.
The committee demanded a detailed report on the company’s arrangements for conducting MDCAT.
Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayyad, a committee member, agreed with the Convener’s views and urged that the PMC’s President and Vice-President be summoned to the committee for a briefing on the PMC’s concerns.
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The committee also inquired about the status of the federal government’s Polyclinic Hospital’s forensic audit. Convener Ali then instructed the Secretary of Health to verify that the three-year forensic audit was completed. The committee gave the Ministry of Health 30 days to report on the forensic audit, and the Secretary responded that he would determine the audit stage.
The meeting’s attendees also went over the Ministry of Health’s audit objections from 2010-11 to 2017-18, with the direction that the ministry’s departmental accounts committee be held on a regular basis and that the committee be informed of the meeting’s minutes.