HYDERABAD: Chairmen of all the six boards of intermediate and secondary education (BISEs) of Sindh have asked the provincial government to pay liabilities of Rs1.735 billion out of Rs2.485bn for three financial years (FYs) accrued on account of reimbursement of fees to students from class IX to XII who were exempted from fees in the period mentioned.

They suggested that since the government was not able to reimburse the total amount of exempted fees, it should allow the boards to charge enrolment and examination fees for IX, X, XI and XII from FY 2020-21 to enable BISEs to run their operations smoothly.

The recommendation was made in a joint representation sent to Sindh’s secretary of universities and boards by these chairmen in the last week of July.

On Thursday, a delegation of the All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) BISE Hyderabad unit also called on these chairmen — who gathered in BISE Hyderabad to discuss a uniform promotion policy for students as announced by the government — to seek payment of liabilities to meet expenses of those employees retiring this year, besides copy assessment charges, last year’s tendering fees and tabulation charges for all these four classes.

The APCA delegation led by its president Abdul Aziz Qureshi met the chairmen and submitted a request stating that outstanding dues for 2019-20 and past arrears were pending with the government that had weakened board’s financial position.

The APCA president told Dawn that non-payment of liabilities had caused great difficulties to run the boards and said that from next month salaries’ payment would become a big issue in the boards of Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Larkana. The liabilities included payment for tabulation, copy assessment and the tenders of the previous year as well, he added.

He said in its presentation to the BISEs chairmen, APCA had resolved that boards being autonomous institutions generated their financial resources through recovery of enrolment and examination fees from the students.

It said the Sindh government in 2017 exempted fees of students from class IX to XII (ninth grade to intermediate level) with the result that a fragile financial situation was seen in the boards because the government belatedly reimbursed those exempted fees.

He urged the Sindh government to either release full amount or allow boards to charge fees from students of those classes in the public sector institutions to help boards perform their functions effectively.

He said declaration of results for the four classes under government’s promotion policy was also hit due to that financial crisis.

According to BISE Hyderabad chairman Prof Dr Mohammad Memon, today’s meeting of chairmen mainly discussed a uniform ‘promotion policy’. A consensus was reached to declare results on the basis of overall score of the previous year of a student, he said, adding that subject-wise marks would be awarded based on past year’s overall numbers.

Answering a question, he confirmed that the Sindh government owed an amount of Rs2.485bn for FY2017-18, FY2018-19 and FY2019-20 under the head of exempted fees. An amount of Rs750m was released and for the second instalment, some queries were raised by the secretary boards and universities, which would be accordingly responded by the chairmen, he said.

In their July 23 joint letter, the six BISE chairmen stated that the boards were facing financial constraints in 2017-18 and 2018-19 in general and during 2019-20 in particular for lack of reimbursement of the exempted fees. This has taken cumulative liabilities (under exempted fees) to Rs2.485bn for FY2017-18, FY2018-19 and FY 2019-20.

It said the boards found Rs750m funds released by the government out of the total dues which were inadequate to make regular payment of staff’s monthly salaries, pensions and retirement benefits, payments to vendors, examination staff and others. It led to financial crisis in the boards as they did not have any other source of funding except collection of fees from students, it added.

It said that so far the boards had not made payments to examination staff of SSC/HSC annual examination 2019-20, including internal/external centre superintendents, invigilators, examiners, head examiners, tabulators, members of vigilance committees etc, who were agitating against delay in payments.

It said school/college teachers’ associations also angrily reacted against delay in their payments. The vendors who supplied examination material, stationery and equipment to boards had threatened to approach both the ombudsman office and courts against delayed payments. The situation had shattered boards’ image, it said.

It proposed that considering the current crisis, it seemed that boards could not function properly and in the interest of education boards’ smooth operation and their sanctity, the Sindh government should release the remaining Rs1.735bn from outside the regular budget to rescue the education boards.

It said that since the government was unable to reimburse full exempted fees, the boards should be allowed to charge enrolment/examination fees from students from the forthcoming academic session.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2020