LAHORE: A good number of matriculation students held a demonstration outside the press club on Tuesday in protest against the Lahore Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education for ‘failing’ them.

Holding placards and banners the students demanded the board to pass them like it did in the case of other students (9th grade) due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

Talking to Dawn, Wasif Ali, a protesting student, said the BISE Lahore had failed a number of matric students. Similarly, it also failed many students of the intermediate under its Covid-19 policy, he alleged.

“We had a meeting with the board chairman who assured us that he would look into the matter but nothing happened,” he said and alleged that the protesting students had gone to the board office but its guards thrashed them.

“We will continue protesting till the board declares us ‘passed’ like it did in the case of other students and the intermediate students should be promoted to the next grade,” Ali demanded.

Speaking to Dawn, a spokesperson for the BISE said the protest of the failed students was not justified.

“The board held the exams of the matriculation and the protesting students failed in it. The protest is not related to the 9th grade students who were promoted in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdown.”

He denied the allegation that the protesting students were beaten up outside the board office by its guards.

SUSPENDED: The education department has suspended six district education officers for showing negligence in observance of the coronavirus-related standard operating procedures (SOPs) in educational institutions.

Three others were issued show-cause notices.

The action comes a day before the Punjab government is going to open the primary schools which were closed down in March after the outbreak of the Covid-19.

The officers were suspended in the districts of Sialkot, Chiniot, Mandi Bahauddin and Bahawalnagar after reports of students and teaching staff of various institutes falling prey to the coronavirus appeared.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2020