KHYBER: The district education office has introduced a new system for centralised annual examinations based on student learning outcomes, insisting the initiative will stop schoolchildren from cramming and encourage them to show their knowledge of subjects in exam papers.

Officials told Dawn that the idea of the SLO-based exam system came from the annual intermediate exam conducted by the board of intermediate and secondary education, wherein papers for all subjects are set by subject specialists for all affiliated educational institutions in a uniform pattern.

Abdur Rehman, principal of a government high school in Jamrud and member of a three-member committee tasked with drafting unified exam papers, told Dawn that the introduction of the SLO-based exam system was meant to discourage cramming among students and encourage them to answer questions in exam papers according to their actual knowledge of subjects.

He said another reason for the move was the “deplorable” results of last year’s grade 9–10 annual exams.

Officials say move will encourage students to show their knowledge in exam papers

“The new exam system, which has been introduced at the school level in Khyber district for the first time, will not only help improve exam results, but it will strengthen the mental faculties of the students as well,” he said.

Mr Rehman said that Khyber was the first district in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to start the SLO-based exam system.

“No school anywhere else in the province has adopted this system yet,” he said.

The principal said that copies of model exam papers were shared with education offices in Peshawar and Bajaur districts on their requests.

He said that the exam papers drafted under the new system had two parts, with Part I comprising multiple choice questions (short questions) and Part II consisting of critical questions.

Mr Rehman added that those papers were designed to encourage students to write detailed answers to the questions on the basis of their overall knowledge of the subjects.

He said great care was taken during the drafting of the papers.

“A three-member committee engaged at least 12 qualified subject specialists for scrutinising and proofreading new papers,” he said.

The principal said those papers would be checked and marked by teachers of all local schools.

The annual examinations are under way in the district. They started in all schools on March 4 simultaneously and will end on March 25.

Education expert Bahadar Khan welcomed the initiative and insisted that papers of “very good quality” were designed under the SLO-based system, which would benefit both students and teachers.

He said the initiative would also help save schools the extra money spent on drafting and printing separate papers for their annual exams.

Sharifullah Afridi, a senior teacher at a government school in Landi Kotal, also appreciated the new exam system and said it would help improve the performance of teachers in government schools as they would try to wrap up their respective courses on time.

He also said the SLO-based exam system would do away with “laziness and indolence” among teachers and would make them more responsible regarding the discharge of their duties.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2024