KARACHI: Urdu might not have been a problem, but English certainly was as the HSC part I and II examinations organised by the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) kicked off on Tuesday.

It was a bit surprising to find the Government College for Men, Nazimabad, among the list of ‘most sensitive centres’ in BIEK list.

“The college isn’t in a sensitive locality or anything but when turned into an exam centre it does change in nature to be listed as ‘sensitive’; you’ll see why,” Mohammad Mansoor, associate professor of commerce at the college told Dawn.

In the corridors turned into examination halls and the classrooms, too, there were only a handful of ‘boys’. The rest were all grown men, many among them wearing prayer caps as they filled their answer sheets, or at least they tried to. “We even have to help these men write their roll numbers on their answer sheets. They don’t even know that. And they are appearing for their English paper but don’t know a word of English,” the professor sadly said.

“Actually, it is not their fault. They are madressah students studying the Alim Fazil course. They are exempted from appearing in so many papers but English, Urdu and Pakistan Studies are compulsory so they do appear for these as private candidates. So here they are,” another college teacher supervising the exams, Ghauri Khan, an associate professor of physics, said.

“I am sure they have received good education in their madressahs but these institutions of religious learning should also think about their compulsory board exams and have teachers to teach them these subjects as well,” the professor said.

“We need good English teachers in our colleges too, what to say about the madressahs then? Frankly, it is the government’s job to give us fine English as well as Urdu teachers, for that matter,” said Naveed Hashmi, the college vice principal.

Just then one of the madressah students was asked to stand up by an invigilator. On checking, he was found to be carrying some crib sheets with him. He was allowed to carry on with his exam though his case would be referred to the unfair means committee of the board.

“Earlier, we used to get others impersonating candidates when admit cards had pictures pasted on them. Then the clever ones just had to paste their older family member or friend’s photo on the card and voila! But not anymore as the BIEK is now issuing computerised admit cards with the scanned photos printed on them,” the vice principal said.

“The regular students are okay, but we get all kinds of kids in our private candidates. There is also no age limit among the private students so they are much older. But we try to see them all as equals. After all they are our kids,” the college principal, Professor Ismail Javed, added.

Loadshedding at centres

Meanwhile, with the city in the grip of severe heat, several centres also experienced loadshedding. At the Abdullah Government College for Women, North Nazimabad, one girl appearing for her Urdu Paper-II in the morning shift fainted due to the heat and no electricity in the college at the time. “Well, it was hot and the poor girl just collapsed but she is all right now, thank God! Things would improve in the coming days as K-Electric has now announced that they would be exempting the centres from loadshedding,” Controller of Exams Mohammed Imran Khan Chishti told Dawn.

It was said in a statement issued by the K-Electric that the power utility won’t be hurting innocent students for “carelessness” of the directorate of colleges in Sindh, which, according to it, owes them Rs34 million in dues for non-payment of 46 connections.

Although the power was back in the afternoon and the students appearing for the English paper didn’t seem to have much trouble, their mothers and other family members waiting for them outside said they wished that they could have a little bit of shade outside.

“Some of us have come from far, from areas like Golimaar and Lasbela. We can’t allow our daughters to come here to the centre on exam day all alone so we come with them and wait here. Thank God for the trees but the crows in the trees also do their bit so we request the college management to kindly put up a shamianah (tent) for us,” requested Amber Mazhar, a student’s mother.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2015

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