KARACHI: The Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) announced on Friday that the annual Secondary School Certificate (SSC) or Matric Part-I and Part-II exams that were scheduled for March 25 will now start on April 1 instead.

According to chairman of the BSEK Dr Saeed ud Din, a fresh schedule for the examinations is currently being prepared and will be shared shortly. He also said that the exams would now be held from April 1. Earlier, members of the All Pakistan Clerks Associations and Lower Staff Association, Sindh held a protest over the matter of the education department’s decision to hand over 15 schools coming under the Special Education Department to non-government organisations.

Addressing the media after the protest Sindh Minister for Education Syed Sardar Shah said that they had to postpone the exams as several teachers and other staffers were going on strike, that too at the eleventh hour in different cities of the province.

Addressing a protest of teachers outside the Karachi Press Club, he said that he wasn’t pleased to find academics and other staff of the public sector education boards protesting over their various issues right before the annual exams. “They do this every year. It is not good timing,” he said, adding that despite a financial crunch the Sindh government had already resolved many of the issues faced by them which included regularising the NTS teachers as well.

“They should know that if it comes to it, we can also gather and form a team of reserve staff to still go ahead with the exams,” he warned.

The decision to postpone the exams in the entire province comes a day after the Hyderabad Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education announced postponement of the SSC examinations there amid continued protest by employees of the educational boards there.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2019