KARACHI: As 325,000 students prepared to appear in their annual secondary school certificate exams, the centre controlling officers (CCO) of some 295 examination centres across the metropolis queued up in the main lobby of the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, on Wednesday waiting for the single elevator that was to take them to the office from where they could collect question papers for the Class IX computer studies exam on the morning shift.

The CCOs were losing their patience as time passed. “We are not allowed to take the stairs and have been told to use only lift. Just see how many of us are here and the lift can only take four people at a time,” complained Abdul Hameed who was there from Standard Govt Boys School in Allah Wali, New Karachi.

“I’ve been here since 8.15am and it’s already five minutes to nine while I am still waiting to ride the lift. The exam starts at 9am and it’s also a long way from our school,” said another CCO Sher Mohammad from Mehran Public School in Shershah. “The BSEK can easily end all this chaos by setting up counters town-wise. But who cares?” he wondered.

Most of the CCOs got the question papers wrapped in pink paper after 9am. And then they raced to their respective centres on whatever means of transport they had — cars, motorbikes, taxis and rickshaws.

Asked why there was a delay in the issuance of the question papers and reason for all the chaos in the lobby, BSEK Secretary Hoor Mazhar said that the board did it deliberately to avoid paper leaks. “We can’t give away the papers much before the exam time,” he said.

BSEK Chairman Fasihuddin Khan, too, said that he didn’t think there had been too much of a delay. “But if there was then the schools also compensated by allowing extra time to the students to solve their papers,” he said.

To add to the hustle and bustle, several students, too, arrived on the scene. They wanted to know where they could get their admit cards from.

Ghulam Hussain, one of the 87 students of Aziz Govt Boys Secondary School in Korangi, said that he and his friends had been running from pillar to post since early morning but without any luck. “We were asked to inquire about our admit cards from Room No 11 here and we just learnt that only 29 forms were submitted at the BSEK by our headmaster Mr Idrees. There are 87 of us. Where are the other forms?” he asked with wide eyes.

“Education doesn’t come cheap even at government schools. There is a fee for everything, even Rs50 for the admit card. Our poor parents pay for everything through their nose and now they are also footing our rickshaw fare as we run around like crazy people in search of our admit cards. If we don’t get admit cards, we miss our first paper tomorrow and waste our entire year,” he said with tears filling up his eyes.

Salma Bibi, who was there with her son, Arif, said that she, too, was there for his admit card. “We came here last night, too. And left empty-handed at 11.30pm when they told us to come back again in the morning. Now we are here again but for what? The children are tense as it is due to exam pressure and these exams are the first major step, a milestone, in their education, while they are already faced with hurdles. Don’t these people want us to educate our children?” she asked.

When the BSEK chairman was confronted about this problem by the media accompanying him during surprise visits to various exam centres along with District Central Deputy Commissioner Dr Saif-ur-Rehman, he said that the board had already sent admit cards to all the schools. “Now we cannot be blamed if the schools delay distributing them among the students,” he explained.

The chairman also said that they had been assured of cooperation by K-Electric that there would be no loadshedding at examination centres during exam time. But when Dawn reached Mujibunissa Akram Govt Girls School in New Karachi, the students there were taking their exams in dark, suffocating rooms without electricity.

The school principal, Farzana Latif, informed the media that they experienced regular loadshedding of two-and-a-half hours each in the mornings and evenings and the first day of exams was no exception to the rule.

One student, Shazia Perveen of Colorado Grammar School, was taking her exam in the corridor outside a classroom. Having a handicap, she was unable to write herself and dictated the answers to a junior, Class VIII student Quratulain Shahid. “We cannot have them sitting inside with other girls as she can be heard dictating the answers to her friend,” the principal explained.

Meanwhile, when the power utility was contacted about the regular loadshedding still carrying on at the exam centres, they informed Dawn that they had never given anything in writing regarding the matter to the BSEK.

“The directorate of school education owes KE some Rs23.6 million in dues. And KE is on the verge of carrying out disconnections on non-payment of bills but is still trying to manage not being too harsh considering it’s exam time,” said a spokesman for the power utility. “We hope the education department, too, would cooperate with us this way and make the payments,” he added.