FINALLY, a decision has been taken. Governor Sindh, Dr Ishratul Ebad exercising his right as the Controlling Authority of all examination conducting boards within Sindh has ordered the continuation of separate examination system for classes IX and X directing all the secondary education boards of Sindh to make immediate arrangements for the class nine examinations.
Though the decision comes precariously close to the scheduled date of April 17 for the matric exams, it is not as delayed a move as it was last year when the combined exams decision for class nine was reverted during the summer vacations, much after the class ten exams had taken place. Last year’s class nine students are still paying the price for the delayed decision, but hopefully the present batch will have a lesser damage to control since their exams are now scheduled with only a month’s delay.
The Governor should be commended for taking action to ease the immediate trauma of the 250,000 plus students and families. It is credible that due notice was taken of the media reports appearing regularly on the issue and of the wide-scale protest launched by the academia concerned with this issue. But at the same time it would be prudent to point out that the situation will in all probability be repeated next year.
While the students are grumbling about the loss of study time – a delay that could have been avoided if a definite decision had been taken last year – the Federal Education Minister, Javed Qazi and Sindh Education Minister, Ms Hamida Khuhro have both stated that this ‘reprieve’ is again only for the current year, which obviously indicates that the controversy is by no means dead, only buried for the moment.
The entire composite exam debate has become an enigma for all concerned. In the face of an overwhelming dissent given by individual teachers; the Private School Management Association; the Sindh University; Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association, the Sindh Assembly and Cabinet, the City Council and a number of other academic bodies, the stubborn stance of Mr Qazi and Ms Khuhro defies all reason.
Most interesting is the fact that even the Punjab Education Minister has given a statement that his province too is considering reviving the separate exams policy which was adopted only last year (2006) on the insistence of the Federal Education Minister. The Punjab education ministry had reversed the composite exam policy of matriculation initially followed by the Punjab board, to the separate exam system in 1997 after finding it to be a weaker structure to follow. And the statistics researched by the Karachi Board of Secondary Education also point towards its better results under the separate exam policy as compared to the results achieved by the other boards in the county conducting composite exams. The Karachi board exams conducted under the separate exam policy had a pass percentage of 70 percent students while the pass percentage of students giving composite exams from Lahore, Peshawar and Rawalpindi was 41 percent, 52 percent and 42 percent, respectively.
As questioned in the past two reports published on this issue, why is the shift in policy being undertaken without extended consultations with academicians and educationists? A system which will not even be in unison with the system allowed for the private board exams. The only reason given by the Federal Minister for education is that it was the system in which HE had given the matric exams and so it should be implemented, though one must add here again that Mr Qazi has no previous background of academics to his credit.
The controversy created must be comprehensively shelved once and for all and the Chief Minister should not allow the Federal government to infringe on provincial autonomy by playing with students’ precious study time yet again next year. And with the opposition for once in harmony with him, the issue should be permanently solved right away.
