November 18, 2007

AKU-EB responds

This is in response to the article “The admission conundrum” (Nov 4) in which the writer comments on presumed mismanagement of secondary and higher secondary education which “has failed to stem the prevailing chaos”. The author sees AKU-EB as deeply implicated in this chaos. For purpose of clarity the facts are as follows:

The substitution of Geography of Pakistan for Urdu by students from overseas is the long standing official policy of the Equivalence Committee of IBCC. There is no cause for confusion.

AKU-EB certificated just three such students of whom two are happily pursuing their college courses hardly a credible occasion of the wide scale anxiety we are said to have engendered.

In Karachi, admission to colleges is conducted by the Combined Admission Policy (CAP) committee in a thoroughly professional manner and has nothing to do with the Karachi Board of Intermediate Education. The CAP committee accepted AKU-EB students at par while several private colleges in both Karachi and Lahore have chosen to treat AKU-EB’s standards as higher than par.

Education is not a provincial subject: it is on the joint list. In the field of public examining the Federal Government exercises policy direction through the Inter Provincial Committee of Ministers of Education (IPCME) while the Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC), deeply rooted in provincial education, implements these policies.

Under this regime the Punjab and NWFP are both making rapid strides in modernising their examination systems. In Sindh, however, while the Minister of Education sits on IPCME the examination boards come under the controlling authority of the governor. These overlapping but separate powers probably account for your columnist’s sense that a new consultative mechanism is required.

In the article the creation of a group of private boards is held as the source of much confusion. Apart from AKU-EB, the only private boards offering school examinations in Pakistan are the Cambridge and the London Boards. Like the O level boards AKU-EB is run by a private university, but unlike them, it is Pakistani and offers Pakistani qualifications as a full voting member of IBCC. It is not subject to any equivalence formula.

In these turbulent times for the school examination system, your columnist wonders whether AKU-EB will stay afloat. AKU-EB is hosting the next meeting of IBCC by popular acclaim. It has the confidence to surf the wave of reform in Pakistani examining into calmer waters for its affiliated students and schools.

Dr Thomas Christie

Director, AKU-Examination Board