KARACHI, Jan 14: Lack of interest and reluctance in extending cooperation by the heads of technical educational institutions to the Sindh Board of Technical Education has jeopardized the future of hundreds of students, enrolled for the Diploma in Associate Engineering, as the Board has failed to conduct their exams even after a lapse of five months.

“The Directorate of Technical Education as well as the principals of technical educational institutions are responsible for delay of the DAE first and second years examinations, by showing reluctance in examining the answer scripts and preparation of results, which are pending at the Board for several months,” the SBTE’s Controller of Examinations, Faiz Mohammad Molani, told PPI on Monday.

The SBTE has to prepare results of thousands of students, appearing in over 17 technologies and nine diploma programmes of technical education.

Altogether, the number of subjects exceeds 2,718, including theory and practical, he informed.

“Last year, we had decided to adopt a centralized assessment policy under which, examination scripts had to be assessed in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur simultaneously for a quicker announcement of the results.

“However, both the directorate and the principals of polytechnics did not extend cooperation to the Board and even disallowed teachers to examine the answer scripts,” he claimed.

Mr Molani deplored that the Board has failed to announce dates for first and second year DAE annual examinations 2001, which have already been delayed for over five months as they were overburdened by preparations of results. The SBTE has asked the principals of polytechnics to start new academic session and next courses if they have successfully completed the first and second year courses, he maintained.

The SBTE controller of examinations said that the situation had changed considerably with the establishment of the city government as both teachers and administration of the Directorate of Technical Education were performing well, fearing check and balance.

He expressed the hope that the SBTE would announce the schedule of 1st and 2nd year DAE examinations in February and be able to conduct the exams in March.

Since adopting the annual system in place of the semester examinations system, the SBTE has failed to make arrangements for DAE first and second year examinations 2001, which were scheduled to be held in August, 2001.—PPI