KARACHI, June 14: The Aga Khan University Examination Board is all set to hold its first Secondary School Certificate composite examinations in May 2007 for about 2,200 candidates from 66 schools in the country.

The private sector education board, which follows the national curriculum and syllabi, has so far enrolled about 5,000 students from 120 educational institutions for the 2008 examinations.

Speaking to newsmen at a briefing, the Director of AKU-EB, Dr Thomas Christie, said the Board had almost finalized the question papers and the script-assessment device, which encouraged knowledge-based education, understanding of subjects and problem-solving abilities among students.

He said that a team of devoted teachers and experts had been engaged by the Board. They were being given training in unbiased and standardized marking of answer scripts.

For the purpose, the first practice examinations for Class IX students in SSC subjects, involving 2,250 candidates, were held recently and the scripts were being assessed by using e-marking software, he added.

He said the software had been designed and written at the AKU, which, according to him, was the fourth examination body in the world to develop the very technology and the first outside the US and the UK.

The first examinations under the AKU-EB will be held by giving the students question papers, which will also have an answer booklet with just a few lines for each answer, depending on the nature of questions, he said.

Other officials of the board, including Afzal Raana, Dawar Shah, Saqib Farooq, Zeenat Ghulam Muhammad and Ashar Minai, spoke about teachers’ training and identifying talent, development of examination material, security and distribution of examination material, scanning of answer scripts and technical features of e-marking.

One of the speakers said the e-marking system produced rapid and accurate assessments, which will be available to candidates after the declaration of results.