LAHORE: The Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) made the lives of over a million Class-V students and their parents hell who had to remain struck up from morning till late in the evening on Thursday at the examination centres.

The commission failed to hold Class-V Urdu paper at the scheduled time of 2pm and the children, along with their parents, remained “hostage” at the examination centres till 6.30pm at a number of places across the province.

The children and their parents staged protests outside examination centres and even chanted slogans, including the most popular “Go Nawaz Go”. The students, mostly under 10 years of age, had to remain at the examination centres for about five hours.

The commission headed by Nasir Iqbal Malik has also twice changed the date-sheet and timings of the Class-V papers causing confusion among children.

Children, parents remain struck at exam centres for hours

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has ordered an inquiry into the mismanagement. He directed education minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan and schools education department secretary Abdul Jabbar Shaheen to investigate the matter and submit a report, saying mismanagement in this regard was intolerable.

As the PEC had on Wednesday revised the date-sheet changing Urdu paper timings from 11am to 2pm, many children reached their respective examination centres and continued to wait for the entry to the centres till 1.30pm. Adding insult to injury, the

PEC also delivered question papers at centres quite late in almost all districts.

Punjab Teachers Union also staged a protest demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club and criticised the school education department for the serious glitch. A teachers’ leader said the secretary schools had assured them that the public schools’ students would be “compensated” for the “confusion” in their results through grace marks.

About six versions of the paper, the teachers said it was not a medical or engineering examination that PEC went that far to take such measures to check cheating.

Another teacher said the chief minister should have appointed an impartial committee to probe into the issue. He alleged that the schools department secretary was part of the whole project and should be held responsible for the fiasco. “How, the secretary himself can hold inquiry,” he observed.

What is alarming for the students concerned and their parents that the PEC is going to hold Class-VIII examination from Saturday (tomorrow), the first being science paper to be held at 2pm. Meanwhile, Class-V Islamiyat paper has been scheduled for March 3 at 2pm.

Assessing its past performance, the PEC has now introduced a one-day break in each Class-VIII paper. According to the date-sheet, the mathematics paper will be held on March 2, English on March 4, Islamiyat on March 6 and Urdu on March 8.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2015

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