PESHAWAR: Though banned, the pocket-sized guides used by matriculation and intermediate students to cheat in examinations are selling in the provincial capital without let or hindrance.

These pocket guides as they’re popularly known are available at almost every stationary shop in the city.

Owners of bookshops in Kohat Road, Hashtnagri and Qissa Khawani bazaars told Dawn that no one from government departments had ever asked them to stop selling such guides.

Peshawar admin fails to impose ban as booksellers make big bucks

A bookseller said as pocket guides promised high profits, he like others anxiously awaited the start of the annual and supplementary examinations of the Secondary School Certificate and Higher Secondary School Certificate courses.

“Every pocket guide gives us around 70 per cent profit,” he said.

He said the guides could be easily carried by students in examination halls due to three inches width and length.

Owner of a stationary shop in Hashtnagri area said the price of one pocket guide was different from the other. He said the guides produced by different publishing houses were sold for Rs350, Rs550 and Rs650.

According to him, all pocket guides have long been published in Mohallah Jangi, a hub of printing presses, with everyone in the city knowing about it.

The trader said if the government was serious about checking the sale of pocket guides, it should raid Mohallah Jangi printers publishing them before supplying them to bookstores across the province.

“Some 15 days ago, I saw labourers load pocket guides onto a pickup truck,” said a school teacher, who frequently visits the printers’ market.

He said pocket guides were supplied to other districts in the province ahead of the SSC examinations.

Few days ago, MPA Fakhr-i-Azam Wazir raised the issue in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on a calling attention notice.

Responding to the calling attention notice and questions raised by other lawmakers regarding cheating, spokesman for the government Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani informed the house that the government had banned pocket guides to discourage the menace of cheating.

When contacted, Mr. Ghani said the sale of pocket guides was banned in the province.

When asked what mechanism the government has developed to check the sale of pocket guides on the market, he said he would get back after ascertaining information from the relevant authorities on the matter.

He, however, didn’t return the call.

Sources in the Peshawar Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education said the district administration had been told to enforce ban on pocket guides. They said a request was put up to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to ban the printing and sale of pocket guides during a meeting some days ago.

The sources said the chief minister accepted the request.

An educationist told Dawn that cheating in examinations once considered a crime and dishonesty and an injustice with bright and talented students had become a major feature of the current education system.

“Pocket guides are solely produced for cheating in exams,” he said.

A parent said unfair means had worried the students who worked hard round the year.

“If cheating is not stopped immediately, then students will stop taking interest in studies and instead, they will opt for cheating materials to get high marks,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2016