KARACHI: While the Cambridge International Education (CIE) has claimed to have waived off its fee for retake of cancelled A-Level exams, students have to pay a fee to the British Council for administering the exams, it emerged on Monday.

Recently, the CIE had announced a “free-of-charge” retake of exams for A-Level students whose exams were cancelled on May 10, 11 and 12. However, confusion persisted as students and their parents were uncertain about some details such as the waiving of fees, etc.

A CIE spokesperson told Dawn that for a retake, Cambridge has waived off its fee completely. “However, the British Council will charge its fee for administering the exams. This fee will be shared by the British Council soon,” the spokesperson said.

Students are also not obliged to retake their exams in November 2023. Whether they do or not, their June 2023 exam results will remain valid.

CIE says British Council will charge fee for holding exams in November

Students who cannot resit in November wondered if they can have a free resit in June 2024? The answer for that is in the positive. Once their centre has made their entries for June 2024, they can ask the centre to contact CIE through the British Council so that CIE can organise a credit to cover the entry fees.

It made it clear that free-of-charge retake would only be available to candidates who remained entered and were unable to sit components due to the cancellation of the three days of exams during the June 2023 series.

The CIE said that some students who were not happy with just one or two of the assessed results were also wondering if they have to resit all the three exams or if they can sit a single component that was cancelled to improve the result for that syllabus. “To receive a result, candidates must complete all components included in their entry option. It is only possible to make an entry for one of the available component combinations listed in the Guide to Making Entries that CIE provide to centres. Candidates should therefore contact their centre for details of the entry choices available to them,” it was explained.

Most of the 45,000 Pakistani students who took the A-Level exams this year were disappointed with their results, with majority getting Cs, Ds, Es and Us and a few As and Bs. The CIE had assessed the subjects whose exams were cancelled after the May 9 riots on the basis of components for the exams they sat for during the 2023 series.

Following the results students expressed their concerns about their grades and called for remedial action by the CIE. As a result, a meeting, chaired by Education Secretary Waseem Ajmal Chaudhry and attended by Cambridge and British Council officials and others, decided that the CIE would retake the exams and also not charge any fee.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2023