24 April 2004	Saturday	03 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

KARACHI, April 23: The schedule of HSC annual examinations is likely to be disturbed considerably due to May 12 by-elections and 12th of Rabi-ul-Awal.

Educational circles maintained that it was likely that the Board of Intermediate Education, be rescheduling the conduct of papers already announced for five different days of May.

The Eid-i-Miladunnabi holiday will fall on May 3, while by-elections for different national and provincial assembly seats would be held in the city on May 12. The election commission, like past, would be requiring the college buildings and premises for setting up polling stations.

Irrespective of the fact that the elections will be held on May 12, the college buildings are supposed to be handed over to the election commission two days in advance, while on the other hand, the Education board will require at least one day, after the elections, to remobilize the examination staff.

Moreover, college teachers were also engaged in election duties and as such the board would have to release them not only on May 12 but also for a couple of days in connection with the polling day preparations, a senior college teacher said.

It is viewed that in addition to May 3, the board will have to reschedule its papers on May 10, 11, 12 and 13 as well. A BIE staffer said that the election commission had also communicated with the board on the issue.

It was learnt that the papers scheduled for the days in question were all major ones, involving candidates of Science General, Pre-Medical, Pre-Engineering, Home Economics and Commerce groups.

Almost half of the centres were located in the election areas and as such the board would be having no options but to hold the affected papers on some other days, after May 20, when the scheduled papers of the examinations would be completed, a source in the board added.

About 122,000 candidates would take the HSC annual examinations in two shifts at 165 examination centres. The examination will commence on April 28. The development has caused concern among the candidates, some of whom telephoned Dawn and expressed the views that the policy makers lacked the ability to take major decisions, keeping in view all the pros and cons of the situation.

The election commission had failed to coordinate with the teachers and educational boards before announcing the date for elections, the callers added, saying that the BIE should clear the confusion timely and announce the new dates, if any, so that the candidates could plan a fresh and concentrate on their studies.