Cambridge International on Friday said that A level students will be allowed to retake exams — which were cancelled earlier in May due to PTI protests — free of charge, country director for Pakistan Uzma Yousuf confirmed.

Only those students whose exams were cancelled on May 10, 11 and 12 can retake [the exams] free of cost in November, she told Dawn.com.

Yousuf added that Cambridge International had taken the decision taking into account the students’ complaints about unsatisfactory results.

The decision comes after most of the 45,000 Pakistani students, who received their Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) AS and A-Level results last week, were terribly disappointed. With a few As and Bs, it practically rained Cs, Ds, Es and Us.

The reason for the results was the predicted grades awarded by the CIE for the three days the exams were cancelled due to protests following the first arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan in May.

The situation had prompted PML-N chief organiser Maryam Nawaz to call upon CIE to review this year’s grading system and compelled the Institute of Business Administration to revise its admission criteria only for the students who take their exams in the May/June series.

Today’s development came after a meeting was held at the Education Ministry with Yousuf and heads of private schools in attendance.

In a post on social media platform X, the secretary of the Federal Education and Professional Training Ministry announced that a retake exam would be held by Cambridge in the October/November series and students will be able to appear for subjects/components missed due to the law and order situation in May.

“Cambridge will not charge any fee for the conduct of such exams,” he said, adding that it will provide a “reduced-cost plan of logistics”.

“Re-evaluation and Re-assessment of individual cases will be carried out, where enormous difference is found to have been noticed between school assessed grades and Cambridge assessment grades,” he stated.

Schools, the secretary continued, would submit requests for re-evaluation and re-assessment to Cambrdige and would bear 80 per cent cost of these requests.

“However, 20pc cost would be borne by the parents. If as a consequence of such re-evaluation grades are changed, the entire fee will be reimbursed.”

He added that the education ministry would also hold meetings with vice-chancellors of renowned universities to provide flexibility in their admission to schools and coordinate with provincial governments to initiate similar measures.

“A complaints redressal mechanism is also being set up under Private Institution Education Regulatory Authority (PIERA) in the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training to keep track of unresolved complaints,” the secretary added.

Additional reporting by Nadir Guramani

Correction: A previous version of this story had stated that the British Council issued the statement. The statement was issued by Cambridge International. The error is regretted.