ISLAMABAD: The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) on Monday decided to promote students of class one to eight without annual exams in the wake of the frequent closures of schools amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, students are supposed to have at least four formative/classroom assessments per subject and the record should be available with their schools.

Through a notification, the FDE announced that there will be no annual exams for class one to seven.

However, instead of the centralised exam, there will be an in-house exam for class eight to be conducted by the respective institutions. The scheduled of the this exam will be issued by the end of this month.

Regular classes of grades 1-7 to continue till further orders

“There will be no centerlised examination for Class V and Class VIII for students both for FDE schools and private institutions registered with Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (Peira) and private students. For admission in class VI, FDE shall issue a cluster based admission policy to ensure that no student is denied from the right of admission,” read the notification.

It said for classes I-VII, regular classes shall ontinue till further orders and all respective heads of institutions are to ensure that every class follows a schedule of complete syllabus coverage and weekly classroom assessments.

“There shall be no annual examinations, however, every student must have record of at least four formative/classrooms assessments per subject and the record must be available with every school to be provided whenever asked for.

“This will help students to better prepare for their next classes. FDE shall issue a promotion policy in this regard.”

The notification stated that classroom assessments could be in the form of MCQs, question and answers tests etc.

The FDE is yet to announce a date for the summer break. However, some officials said if the temperature remained under control, there are chances that schools and colleges and academic session will be closed on July 10. They said the next academic session was likely be start on August 2.

Every year, the academic year used to start in March but due to the frequent closures of educational institutions amid the pandemic the ministry of education decided to prolong the academic session till July to provide extra time to students to complete their already reduced syllabus.

From the start of upcoming academic session, students from class one to five will be provided new books based on the Single National Curriculum.

Private Schools Network President Afzal Babar said the FDE should have ensured holding of class fifth and eight exams as these are scholarship exams for students of both pubic and private schools. However, an FDE official said due to the uncertainty about Covid-19 and the heath wave, the FDE had decided not to hold the scholarship exams this year.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2021