Daily Times

The other day I asked some holders of very important offices of my university that why exactly we need National Testing Service (NTS) to test our students for admissions to the various degree programs. There were no answers. It seems that we as a nation have ascended to the holiness of this testing service as the legitimate and most accurate way to judge entrants of almost every field. Be it the clerk for a court, paramedics for government hospitals, and students for various degree programs — the only answer to all testing needs is to hire this testing service.

Does anyone ever tested the various entry test exams this testing service gives specially for university admissions? Do they really measure achievement and intelligence of the students as required for a specific program?

Many public universities give out admission forms to the students at mere 50 percent of the marks in a previous degree or certificate. This is followed by a test normally prepared by a hired testing service which is mostly NTS here in Pakistan.

The contents and scope of the test are not set in consultation with the teachers that are going to teach the students.

I, as a faculty member of a university, have seen the ever scholastically weaker students entering the universities with very low marks in previous degree/certificate program. These students are admitted with marks obtained in tests prepared by this testing service with mark threshold set low by the public universities to accommodate as many students as possible.

Lahore High Court (LHC) had declared the NTS an unapproved body under Higher Education Commission Ordinance 2002 and ruled that the recognised universities/institutions are not under any lawful obligation to conduct tests by national testing service or bound by the results of the tests

This is worrisome more today mainly because of the abject condition of school and college education in Pakistan. Moreover, the recurring incidents of the leakage of this testing services’ test papers are getting normal which will eventually be forgotten about when the media’s obsession with it will dwindle. Students frequently construe test scores as veracity about their scholastic abilities.

We all know that the national testing service have become enormously successful from its various products (tests). I will not be surprised if soon it may rival the interior ministries of the four provinces in storing and retrieving information about the customers (applicants/students). This testing service functions like a well-oiled machine, having all the right emergency plans, security, biometrics, etc.

The lack of accountability in this testing service is also keeping it in the news. It normally retains itself as non-profit organisation and claims that they invest their income back into the corporation. They have no stock holders and use other God knows what tricks to evade taxes. Furthermore, this testing service has intimate relationship with the universities which has assisted it in creating a demand for its products that students bear the financial burden of, and not the universities.

We must not forget that the Lahore High Court (LHC) has declared this private testing service an unapproved body under Higher Education Commission Ordinance 2002 and ruled that the recognised universities/institutions are not under any lawful obligation to conduct tests by national testing service or bound by the results of the tests.

In a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Communications, it was informed by Secretary Establishment Division Tahir Shahbaz that NTS is a private organisation. The official also said government departments were not bound to utilise only this service. The degree of the head of this organisation has been found fake. NTS along with a courier company has been minting money instead of using Pakistan Post for collecting student documents. Moreover, if NTS declares some candidates eligible for a job post than it is not answerable to anyone for anomalies in recruiting.

Current state of this testing service is such that from parents, teachers to the students everyone trusts it without ever questioning its qualities although some mouths have started talking about it only recently.

Has anyone ever tested sufficiently if the national testing service’s score for admission tests along with the college performance predicts better performance in the universities for various ethnic groups and income levels admitting in various degree programs? Is this service really doing our institutions any good? This local testing service should keep copies of the scientific papers if any on its websites that reports the research conducted to validate its various products. This testing service should also release all test items that are the basis for test subjects’ scores along with the correct answers (as mandated elsewhere such as by ‘Truth in Testing for the Common Core,’ New York.)

HEC should direct all the universities to develop their own tests culture for students as was the case before the empire of National Testing Service came into being. If the concept of District Universities put forward by this government is realised, this would mean more business for this testing service. Having a single most frequently used testing body, allots too much power to it and this means monopoly.

The writer is an Assistant Professor. He tweets at @Prof_MKShaikh

Published in Daily Times, November 6^th 2017.