HYDERABAD: Annual examinations 2016 for Secondary School Certificate (SSC) Part-1 and 11 (9th and 10th) will be held from March 28 to April 8 in the 10 districts of Sindh falling within the jurisdiction of the Hyderabad Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE).

This was announced on Thursday by BISE chairman Prof Dr Muhammad Memon at a press conference held at a conference hall of the board.

He said the board had made all proper arrangements to hold the examinations in the districts of Hyderabad, Tando Mohammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Jamshoro, Matiari, Badin, Shaheed Benazirabad, Dadu, Thatta and Sujawal.

The board had set up 217 centres for written examinations, including the 21 centres which were declared sensitive — seven in Hyderabad, one in Tando Allahyar, four in Shaheed Benazirabad, one in Sujawal and two in Dadu, Jamshoro, Matiari and Thatta, he said.

He said that total 132,402 candidates (both boys and girls) were registered to appear in the examinations this year.

The BISE chief quoted the Hyderabad division commissioner as saying that he (commissioner) had directed all the deputy commissioners concerned to enhance deployment of police for security arrangements, ban shops of photocopy machines during the papers and exempt the centres from power loadshedding during the hours of exams.

He said the Sindh home department had announced imposition of Section 144 of the criminal procedure code and the Hyderabad police range DIG had also assured the board administration of his full cooperation in this regard.

He said the board had established a monitoring cell for addressing complaints regarding examinations and it could have powers to issue special directives on the spot.

He said that if any person was caught while impersonating candidates, an FIR would immediately be registered. He said the board had constituted 22 vigilance committees comprising officials of the Sindh education department of 10 districts, senior teachers and board staff.

He appealed to people belonging to every walk of life to play their role in controlling copy culture and cheating while appreciating steps taken by the board in this regard.

He said that for the first time, home assessment of examination copies had been stopped and copies of all subjects would be assessed in a centralised way.

He said that after the written examinations, the board would establish five to six centres for assessment in Matiari, Badin, Jamshoro, Shaheed Benazirabad and others, while the main centre would be set up in the board office.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2016