LAHORE: The Punjab government’s ‘lack of interest’ in appointing regular heads of seven boards of intermediate and secondary education (BISEs) in the province is undermining the fair and transparent examination system across the province.

The divisional commissioners are heading Gujranwala, Sargodha and Sahiwal boards for over a year, and Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan and Bahawalpur boards for the past four months – as a stopgap arrangement.

In the recent matriculation examinations, conducted under the supervision of divisional commissioners, fingers were pointed at the examination system wherein Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had invested and focused a lot – to eliminate malpractices.

Sources claimed the boards fell short of ensuring transparency and faced secrecy issues in the matriculation examination, including paper leak in the Rawalpindi board and missing answer sheets in Gujranwala. They also alleged that the Sahiwal board question papers were available on WhatsApp before the examination. The issue is important, especially in context of the approaching intermediate.

Punjab Higher Education Department Secretary Nabeel Awan, however, said the matriculation papers were not leaked in the Rawalpindi board but wrong envelopes were opened. He said inquiries were conducted, among others, in Rawalpindi and Gujranwala boards and a former board chairman was sent to the Rawalpindi board for putting things straight.

Stopgap measure at seven boards creating transparency issues

When the boards’ chairmen tenures were completing in different boards, the Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) had started suggesting grant of additional charge to the incumbent chairmen, including the Gujranwala commissioner. In the meantime, the higher education department had advertised the vacant posts of boards’ chairmen thrice, offering lucrative MP-1 scale. Under the management position (MP) scale, special salary packages and perquisites are given to the officers working in public departments on a contract or special assignment basis. Since ‘sharp and ingenious bureaucrats’ did not show interest, the whole process was scrapped.

It is learnt that the search committee, led by the chief secretary, had recommended Riaz Hashmi and Ghulam Muhammad Jhakkar for the posts of chairmen in Multan and Faisalabad boards, respectively. But this selection was also scrapped after the law minister intervened.

On higher education department’s request to extend tenure of Bahawalpur and Multan boards’ chairmen for three months, the chief minister had constituted a three-member committee, led by law minister Rana Sanaullah, having chief secretary as co-convener and higher education secretary as member and secretary to the committee. The committee deliberated upon the history and the latest position pertaining to the tenures of BISEs chairmen and recommended that the additional charge of vacant posts of seven boards’ chairmen, except Lahore and DG Khan, be entrusted to the divisional commissioners. The commissioners were offered Rs50,000 per month honorarium for carrying out additional assignment as BISEs chairmen. They were directed to do the boards’ official work regularly and convene meetings pertaining to the boards’ issues within the premises of respective boards’ campuses to fully maintain control on issues and send progress reports to the HED on a weekly basis.

Sources in the BISEs, however, alleged that none of the commissioners paid due attention to the board affairs. Immediate decisions were delayed. Financial matters came to a grinding halt as the commissioners did not sign many hefty amount bills – in the wake of Ahad Cheema episode.

“The commissioners say the heavy amount bills will be signed by the regular chairmen when they will be in the saddle,” a source said.

HED secretary Awan admitted that the commissioners did not attend board offices as were required. About advertising the board chairmen’s posts again, Mr Awan had, in January, said the fresh advertisement that might offer MP-1 scale again would be issued within a fortnight. In the last week of March, he said the advertisement for the chairmen would be issued within a week as he had submitted proposals to the chief secretary.

However, the process to appoint regular boards’ chairmen is yet to start afresh. Eventually, the commissioners will now be supervising even more sensitive intermediate annual examinations beginning from May 5.

It may be mentioned that the Sahiwal commissioner who took over the charge on Nov 9, last year, had shown courage to request the authorities that he might not be entrusted the sensitive duty since he would be busy supervising many development programmes besides working on the improvement of education and health facilities as well as performing other important assignments and duties of the commissioner office, including administration, revenue, law and order, court work etc.

“In the present circumstances, it is not possible for the commissioner to give proper time to BISE Sahiwal because it may affect my basic duties and functions,” the request explained. It was suggested that additional charge of the board chairman might be entrusted to some other suitable officer.

The committee, led by Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, expressed its displeasure on the unwillingness of the Sahiwal commissioner and recommended that he should hold the additional charge as the board head like other commissioners.

When contacted, a former chairman of BISE said the ships of the education boards were being driven without captains.

“It is very difficult to streamline examination system, but if you loosen the grip, things come down collapsing,” he said.

With additional charge, he said, the commissioners had shown complete lack of interest in the duty and rarely visited the board offices. They called board secretaries to the commissioner offices for signing day-to-day work files but remained reluctant to take tough decisions. Claiming that the cases of cheating and impersonations increased during matriculation examination, the former chairman asserted that command and control must stay intact in boards.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2018