LAHORE: Only three per cent of all the randomly selected answer sheets of the Intermediate (part-1) examination, rechecked by a panel of experts, are found to be “under marked” by the examiners, while some seven per cent are “over marked”, it is learnt.

The rechecking task was assigned to as many as 60 assistant professors, associate professors and professors in BS-18 to BS-20 by higher education department on the direction of a high-level inquiry committee probing into the allegations of ‘faulty marking’ that triggered students’ protests in Lahore and other cities of the province.

These experts after finishing the reexamining of the complainant’s answer sheets submitted their observations separately to the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) chief secrecy officer (CSO) in sealed envelopes.

“The professors of public sector educational institutions have accomplished their task. And during the rechecking of answer sheets, they observed a trend of under marking of three per cent of the sheets they checked. Similarly, a trend of over marking of almost seven per cent sheets was also observed,” a senior official told Dawn on Thursday while quoting some of the professors.

Following the students’ protests, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had constituted last week an inquiry committee headed by the additional chief secretary to dig into the issue.

The CM also desired that the committee should also submit a detailed report to his office having information related to students’ complaints, marking mechanism, flaws (if any), officials responsible, action recommended, remedial measures etc.

While sharing the experts’ observations with Dawn, the official said they found some 90 per cent of the total answer sheets they were given after random selection (about 5,500) had no marking issues.

“90 per cent sheets have been cleared by the professors, as there was no problem related to under/over marking etc with them. It means that the result compilation system of the board is functioning well,” he added.

He said the Board’s CSO, after receiving the professors’ reports submitted these to the committee on Wednesday evening. And now the committee members are studying these reports to reach a conclusion. Hopefully, the committee would submit its report to the CM within next couple of days, he said.

The official said, rechecking of all the complainants’ answer sheets was being done separately and soon the board would start contacting the candidates in this regard through SMS service or calling them personally to show them the answer sheets.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2016