OKARA: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), Sahiwal, has 70 employees against the 272 sanctioned posts since its establishment in 2010, Dawn has learnt.

The ultimate sufferers of the understaffed arrangement are candidates (or their parents) for matriculation and intermediate examinations who face a number of ordeals.

One such ordeal was suffered by Waris Haideri, a resident of Okara rural locality, who happened to be at the BISE office on Monday to deposit examination overdue fee and get cleared the matriculation result of his daughter.

First off, Haideri traveled for three hours from his home to arrive at the board office only to be learned that he needed to visit the bank and deposit the fee.

The designated bank branch is five kilometres from the board office. At bank, a long queue of candidates greeted Haideri. He waited in the queue for an hour.

After the fee was deposited and delivered to the official, Haideri was told to go home and wait for the post as the result card would be mailed to him.

The board recently declared the matriculation results of 170,000 candidates of the Sahiwal division. The result was flawless and declared on time.

Examination Controller Tahir Abbas Jaffari told Dawn though it was understaffed, the Sahiwal BISE had met its result targets well.

He said the board needed to work under one-window arrangements so that visitors were facilitated.

He said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had sent an appreciation letter to board for its good working.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2014