RAWALPINDI, Nov 19: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Rawalpindi, following Punjab government directives, has abolished the part-wise examination system for classes 9th and 10th and reverted to the old combined examination system, official sources told Dawn.

A notification to this effect has been issued by the BISE Rawalpindi. As such, there will be no separate board examination for current 9th class in the year 2006, the sources said. A composite SSC examination for both the classes will be held in the year 2007, they added.

However, the students who failed in class 9th annual examination 2005 will appear in the papers they could not clear along with class 10th examination in 2006 according to the existing scheme of studies. The abolition of part-wise examinations for matriculation had been announced by the federal minister for education, Javed Ashraf Qazi.

According to the new scheme of studies, different combinations of subjects include science group, humanities group, technical group, Darse Nizami group, social science subjects and technical subjects. There are about 46 subjects of social sciences, out of which a student will have to choose two along with compulsory subjects like English, Urdu, Islamiyat, Pakistan Studies and Mathematics. The optional subjects also include 16 languages, both local and foreign, like Bengali, Turkish, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and German.

In the technical group, some very interesting subjects have been included such as repair and maintenance of household electrical appliances like refrigerator, air-conditioner, radio, tape recorder and TV, plumbing/sanitary fitting, electrical wiring, woodwork (boat-making), food processing and preservation, poultry farming, beautician, furniture making, welding (gas/electric), auto-mechanic (motorcycle and scooter), computer hardware, servicing and minor repairing of tractors, fish farming, dress making and fashion designing.