LAHORE: The Lahore Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) top management plans to amend various rules related to holding examination and other tasks in a bid to end malpractices whether on the part of board officials or the candidates appearing in various exams.

The management also plans to transfer several officials occupying posts in various branches of the board for the last 10 to 15 years, Dawn learnt on Sunday.

The Lahore board is considered to be the biggest certificates awarding institution in Punjab holding elementary, secondary and higher secondary school examinations. It handles annual examinations taken by more than 150,000 students of intermediate alone.

“Keeping in view the cases of impersonation, cheating etc detected time to time in Punjab’s biggest BISE, there is a dire need to revisit its rules and amend them in order to check malpractice and corruption. Therefore, we have started working on the issue and plan to discuss it in the board meeting to be held soon,” BISE Chairman Prof Chaudhry Muhammad Ismael told Dawn.

When asked which rules, he thought, needed to be amended for making the system foolproof, he said under the existing rules, a candidate residing in Lahore or any other district of the division might appear in the exams from any of the city or town under the BISE’s jurisdiction. But the question was that if a candidate failed in any exam held in Lahore, why he/she was interested in appearing in the supplementary or the annual exams again from Kasur, Raiwind or Sheikhupura etc, he wondered. Therefore, he said, the rule needed to be amended, making such a candidate accountable before the board. And under the amended rule, he said, such candidate would have to convince the authorities by showing proof of his/her residence through computerised national identity card (CNIC), domicile, certificate etc to justify his/her plea for sitting the exam form the city or town of his/her own choice.

“In (the BISE) admission form too, there is no check on such practice. So by amending this rule, any malpractice could be detected,” he added.

Similarly, he said, the rules related to checking eligibility of candidates also needed to be amended to curb malpractices and corruption. Under the amended rules, he said, the candidates would be asked to provide their clear photographs so that there should be no ambiguity regarding their identity when they appeared in the exams. Likewise, strict enforcement of the rules related to issuance of various duplicate documents would also be ensured, the chairman said. He said the cases of those applying for issuance of duplicate matric, intermediate certificates for the second time would be placed before the board members for approval.

He said under the planned amendments in rules, none of the candidate would be allowed to leave the examination centre (except emergency or justified reason) before half time of the paper duration. And if any candidate had to be allowed to do so after a strict scrutiny of his or her case by the examination staff, they would not be allowed to take the question paper outside the hall, he added.

Similarly, he said, none of the candidates would be allowed to use toilet (except emergency) before the half time.

He said there would be further tightening of Lahore BISE rules, besides their stricter implementation, as it was the biggest examination body of the province.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2016