KARACHI: The chairman and controller of examinations of the Board of Secondary Education Karachi shared with the media some of the findings of the scrutiny committee at a press conference in the BSEK committee room on Wednesday.

The scrutiny committee was formed by BSEK Chairman Prof Anwar Ahmed Zai after hundreds of students thronged the BSEK office following the announcement of the SSC part-II results with complaints of being wronged when being failed or marked absent for their exams in which they had appeared.

After the scrutiny committee’s initial findings that some of the answer books of some 800 students who had appeared for their physics practicals never reached the board, another committee was formed to look into that matter and review the circumstances which led to this delay.

Prof Ahmed Zai asked Controller of Exams Noman Ahsan to do whatever he could to provide relief to the 800 students affected by the issue.

‘No compromises for achieving transparent results’

The chairman said that last year more than 4,000 scrutiny cases came forward and this year they got 800 cases for scrutiny within three days. “And we will look into those cases and give our decision about them within a week while making no compromises for achieving transparent results,” Prof Zai said.

It was also shared that the number of cases received on the first day was 344. “But when our head examiner and deputy head examiner reviewed the answer books they found discrepancies of six to 10 numbers in just four copies, which can still not get the candidates the passing grade,” Prof Zai said.

Presenting the answer books to media persons to examine themselves, he asked how the board could pass students who got four to 24 marks in a subject. “Students like these,” he said, “are in denial about their having failed.”

Copies of those students who despite having failed were claiming to have been wrong by the board, too, were put in front of the media. One such answer book raised special interest as instead of writing any answers to the exam questions the student had written that he was a Hafiz-i-Quran and, therefore, deserved 90 per cent marks.

Prof Ahmed Zai said that transparency in results also meant to withstand all pressures and not bend to outside influences. “That’s the only way that you can improve the standard of education,” he said.

Finally, the chairman announced that for the convenience of students, centres for acquiring all kinds of matric forms will be set up in all districts of the city. “The mark-sheets, too, will be made available there so that everyone won’t be rushing to the board office for such things,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2015

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