Petitioner Sagar Ladhani had moved the Sindh High Court on Thursday against the condition of studying Islamiat at O level to get an equivalence certificate from the local education board to appear in the forthcoming entrance test to MBBS admissions.
The division bench comprising Chief Justice of SHC, Justice Mushir Alam, and Justice Ahmed Ali Shaikh issued notices to the respondents, the federal and provincial education secretaries, the Inter-Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC), the Dow University of Medical and Health Sciences, the National Testing Service and the provincial and federal law officers and fixed the matter for hearing on Friday.
The petitioner, represented by Barrister Farough Naseem, completed his O and A levels from the University of Cambridge through a local private schooling system. He submitted that the subjects of religious studies prescribed in the O level syllabus were Islamic Religious
Culture and Islamiat for Muslim students and Religious Studies and Bible for Christian students. The petitioner stated that there was no subject in the O level curriculum for the students belonging to other religious minorities, including the Hindus.
He submitted that when he approached the Board of Intermediate Education to obtain an equivalence certificate of A level, he was told that it could be granted to him only if he had passed religious studies at O level or ethics at the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams.
He said he was unable to apply to the Dow University of Health Sciences for appearing in the forthcoming entrance test to MBBS admission as the education board declined to grant him the equivalence certificate as required by the university.
The petitioners counsel stated that the placement test for admission to medical colleges would be conducted on October 30, and the petitioner was informed on October 4 that he should have taken ethics or religious studies along with other mandatory subjects at O level for obtaining SSC equivalence certificate from the education board. He stated that such a condition had not been notified to the petitioner prior to his taking O level exams.
Also, he said, ethics was not part of the curriculum in the Cambridge education system but part of the curriculum in the SSC exams.
The counsel stated that the SSC examination of ethics was scheduled for May 2012, and if the condition was not relaxed, the petitioner was bound to lose his academic year. He prayed the court that the petitioner, subject to qualification or otherwise, be allowed to take the scheduled admission test.
He prayed the court to direct the respondents to allow him to apply for admission to the medical college and appear in the entrance test. The bench, after hearing the federal and provincial law officers on Friday, allowed the student to appear in the test provisionally and adjourned the hearing till November 15.
