March 14, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1429

PESHAWAR, March 13: Senior officials of eight educational boards are drawing millions of rupees in the name of supervising the printing of question papers, it is learnt.

The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), Peshawar, some times back, when it did not have its own printing press, used to get question papers printed from printing presses outside the province. Spending against this head was used to be made from a ‘secret fund’ managed by the board. This fund was maintained as un-auditable to ensure that no one could trace printing presses where question papers were printed, sources told Dawn.

“Although the Peshawar BISE and the other boards have their own printing presses now, their senior managements are still drawing money under this head,” they said.

They claimed that high-ranking officials received Rs300,000 each for printing of question papers for Secondary School Certificate (annual and supplementary) and intermediate (annual and supplementary) examinations, which meant that each of them received Rs1.2 million per year. They said officials at all the eight boards received the same amount of money.

“Put together, eight chairmen and as many controllers of examination in the province receive more or less Rs20 million under this head. This money comes from students who are subjected to fee raise every year,” the sources added.

“They use paper, ink and machinery provided by the government. They are employees of the government. Then what is the logic behind drawing such huge sum of money for just supervising the printing process,” they said.

The government established four educational boards in Abbottabad, Bannu, Swat and Malakand in 1990, followed by new boards in Mardan and Kohat in 2001 and Dera Ismail Khan in 2007.

“This has caused huge financial cost to the government. The government has spent millions of rupees on constructing new buildings for these boards, and the expenses on staff have also increased manifold,” said the sources.

They said the boards were being run from students’ fee and the government did not give any grant to them. The boards in Dera Ismail Khan, Malakand and Bannu faced financial problems because they had insufficient number of students, but still the top officials received their share from printing of question papers, they said.