KARACHI: Dreams of furthering their education in electrical, chemical and mechanical engineering or specialising in internet technology were shared by top position-holders in the Higher Secondary Certificate final exams as the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi announced their pre-engineering and science general group results here on Sunday.

A total of 30,709 candidates — 22,937 male and 7,772 female — appeared for the pre-engineering exams of which 15,154 passed of whom 11,110 were male and 4,044 female, giving a total pass percentage of 49.35.

The top two pre-engineering position-holders, Anum Amad Siddiqui (who got 998 marks out of 1,100) and Ayesha Muzaffar (997/1,100), both belong to Aga Khan Higher Secondary School.

Meanwhile, Abdul Saboor Ahmed of Adamjee Government Science College was third with 992/1,100 marks. Anum said she wanted to get into PNEC-NUST to specialise in electrical engineering, Ayesha wanted to get into the same institute, too, but she wanted to study chemical engineering as chemistry happens to be her favourite subject, and Saboor hoped to get into NED University of Engineering to study mechanical engineering.

In the science general group or computer science 2,627 candidates appeared for the exams of whom 1,214 — 586 male and 618 female — passed, giving a total pass percentage of 46.21. All the top three position-holders are female and belong to DA Degree College for Women. Sidra Khalid earned 928 marks out of a total of 1,100 to be first, Fiza Danish was second with 922 marks and Syeda Rubab Zehra 921 marks. Sidra wants to appear for the CSS exams in the coming years, Fiza wants to do her graduation in computer science and Rubab wants to do her master’s in mathematics after completing BSc.

Ombudsman of Sindh Asad Ashraf Malik, the chief guest on the occasion, presented the top three position holders of both groups with cash awards of Rs100,000, Rs50,000 and Rs30,000, respectively. They were also presented with the Goveror of Sindh Dr Ishratul Ibad gold medals. “I know that there is always a tough competition among hard-working students and the results not going in the favour of all these students may be disheartening, too. But it should not stop you from working hard because your hard-work will serve you well in your future and throughout your life. So don’t give up on your dreams because your dreams will help you achieve greater heights,” he told to the students.

Later, when pointed out that most of the top position-holders were from private colleges, BIEK controller of exams Mohammad Imran Khan Chishti said the college admission policy (CAP) was flawed as they were through with their lists, etc, by October usually and by then the students not wanting to waste their time had already joined coaching centres. “Then when college begins they get bored to be taught something which has already been covered by their coaching centre and don’t attend classes,” he said, adding that in private colleges they gave admission to the students based on their class nine results, which helped them begin classes early and cover the course on time.

Meanwhile, BIEK chairman Mohammad Akhtar Ghori said he had sent a summary to Chief Minister House to award scholarships to position-holders from lower- middle-class homes. “I know that it has been a big burden on the families of these students to get them so far. They deserve scholarships and government should take responsibility for their higher studies as they are our future leaders,” he said. “In the letter I have also reminded the CM to award scholarships to previous year’s position-holders, whose families are finding it difficult to pay for their higher education.”

The 95 BIEK results in limbo

The BIEK chairman also aired his resentment over the anti-corruption department raid on their offices and confiscating 95 answer books before they could be checked by college teachers.

“They had no business to do what they did,” he said.

“If they had a problem with our methods or the marks given, they could have carried out their investigation after the results had been tabulated.

“Now even if they return us the answer books, how are we to know that they have themselves not made changes in them? We will not take those answer books back now. The candidates who the answer books belong to have suffered badly due to what happened, which is very sad, and a terrible thing to have happened to them,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2016