KARACHI, March 16: The Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi, has decided to enhance the limits fixed for college principals and the Board chairman to condone attendance shortfall of college students, sources in the Board said.

In a meeting on Saturday, the Board members unanimously agreed that the rules, which empowered the college principals and the chairman of the BIE to condone the shortage of attendance of any regular student desiring to appear in the annual examinations, should be relaxed at least for the current academic session.

Sources said the Board again considered a letter written by the City Nazim to Sindh governor for relaxation in the attendance policy and finally decided that the college principals could condone the shortage in attendance up to 10 per cent, instead of previously-allowed limit of 5 per cent, while the chairman of the board could give another waiver up to 20 per cent, which previously was 10 per cent.

Now, a student would be required to attain a 45 per cent compulsory attendance till March 30, provided the controlling authority approved the recommendations of the Board. However, after this relaxation, which is to stay for this year only, if a student failed to attend the classes in the required numbers, he would either has to appear as a private candidate or will loose the chance of appearing in the examination.

The decision, which would now be forwarded to the controlling authority of the Board — Sindh Governor — for approval was taken in order to ensure that a maximum number of students could be allowed to appear in the examinations, despite the fact that they were far below the 75 per cent compulsory attendance, a member who attended the meeting said.

The BIE attendance rules could never be implemented in letter and spirit during the last many years and the situation was aggravated because of the provincial education department’s desire to be more strict against the students failing to meet the 75 per cent attendance requirement for appearing in the exams.

According to initial studies, undertaken by the Board and college principals, there was a likelihood that about 20 to 22 thousands students of HSC classes in the three faculties would not be able to appear in the Intermediate annual examinations this year.

Commenting on the latest lenient move, another member of the Board said it was the only option available to keep the 75 per cent attendance criterion intact. “We have agreed to relax the rules only, not to violate the government’s act on the BIE,” he added.

It was further learnt that the students of Science group who failed to ensure 45 per cent attendance could be deprived of appearing in the examinations, while in the case of Commerce and Arts students there is a possibility that those who were short of attendance could still be given a chance to appear as private candidates as they did not involve in any practical works.

A senior teacher expressed the view that there were about 2,500 students who were even not meeting the 45 per cent attendance criterion in the Science group.

The Board could now accept examination forms from those who were stopped earlier and reassess the attendance position of students received from colleges after March 30.