THIS is apropos Raheel Illyas’s letter (March 24) about the usage of mobile phones in examination centres. I myself have seen people receiving calls from candidates. One recent example was a test conducted for assistant director in the ministry of defence by the National Testing Service.

During the test candidates left classrooms on the pretext of going to the toilet, where they used mobile phones that they had brought with them covertly. Apart from them, my friends told me that in the Sukkur centre invigilators went out of the class frequently, providing an opportunity to the candidates to exchange among themselves the answers of questions.

Last year NTS conducted a test for school teachers in Sindh, where the use of mobile phones was so rampant that almost every candidate benefited from this unfair facility, and recently those candidates were given jobs on the basis of the results achieved through unfair means.

The bottomline is that testing institutes, including the Federal Public Service Commission, Sindh Public Service Commission, Punjab Public Service Commission and NTS have squarely failed to check usage of mobile phones in examination centres.

Can anyone tell me the answer to the question raised by Mr Raheel about how a person depending entirely on his knowledge and luck can compete with them?

M. Yousif Tunio

Islamabad