LAHORE: The Punjab University’s (PU) Board of Studies announced 25 grace marks to the 58 examinees of Development Journalism, in which 29 students, who were working journalists, had failed, said official sources on Tuesday.
The examinees claimed at the exam time that the test was made out of questions that deviated from the course they were taught, and they boycotted the exam.
Examinations controller of PU Professor Taqi Zahid Butt at the time promised that if the students took the exam, the Examination Branch would act against the examiner and grant 30 additional marks to each student. They wrote the exam and when the results were announced that 29 people had failed, the students filed an application against the examiner with the VC and went on strike at the VC’s office. The VC approved the application and forwarded it to the Board of Studies.
Dean of Behavioural Sciences Dr Mugheesuddin Sheikh told Daily Times that it was found that two of the questions were completely irrelevant to the course outline, hence the board decided to grant 25 marks to the examinees. An official source said Dr Abdul Rehman Khalid did not send an internally made question paper to Prof Dr Rubina (of the Economics Department), the external examiner, in line with the rules. She had to set the paper by herself, the source said.
Dr Khalid was acting chairman, as Dr Mugheesuddin was not in the country. staff report
