KARACHI – Various student wings of political parties have become active in the campus of Karachi University (KU) for minting money by demanding waiver of examination fee for dozens of private candidates willing to appear in the annual examinations of MA (regular/private) 2011 starting from today, TheNation learnt on Sunday. 

These political wings had got waiver of fee in the same examinations for more than 250 candidates from the KU administration last year, while in the majority cases these political groups were already paid by the candidates, a source in the administration revealed. “These political wings manoeuvre and ask supporters to appear in private exams and help clear examinations by using political pressure. B.Com private examinations are usually a main target of these groups,” he said.
When KU Campus Officer Prof Dr Khalid Iraqi was contacted by TheNation, he said that the University has a Students Financial Aid Office (SFAO) to support the meritorious as well as needy students by offering fee waivers. He said that the university has a merit for selection of candidates for waiver of fee. It is pertinent to mention here that Prof Dr. Shakeel Ahmed Khan is In charge of this office. The SFAO has a motto that no student should leave the university without a degree only because of financial crisis.
An official of the KU administration said that political wings are not coming through proper channel hence they are using illegal and unethical ways to make their demands fulfilled. He disclosed that the university was already facing financial crunch like other public universities of the country, which shows that very a few candidates will find fee waiver but only on merit. He said that last year these groups were putting pressure on the administration of the Karachi University to give students’ wings surplus admissions whereas these groups had provided KU a list of more than 400 students for admissions.