LAHORE: Around one million students appeared in class VIII exams held across Punjab during the last four days, said the Punjab Curriculum, Training and Assessment Authority (Pectaa).

The universal examination exercise was held between March 9 and 12, with nearly one million students participating across Punjab, the Pectaa said in a statement here on Friday.

The Grade-VIII standardised examination have been revived by Pectaa after a six-year gap with an aim to restore assessment standards and reinforce merit-based evaluation within the school system. The results will be announced on April 9.

Pectaa Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Musa Ali Bokhari said the extensive examination process was executed with professionalism and transparency.

Managing Director Academics Dr Zubda Zia supervised the academic planning, assessment design and overall quality assurance framework.

“The operational and technical implementation of the assessment was carried out by the Pectaa assessment and IT team,” it said and added, across Punjab, 1,901 clusters and 5,714 examination centres were established with participation from 26,047 schools.

A total of 6,104 superintendents and 21,735 invigilators were deployed to administer the examinations, while 994,651 students from 40 districts and 144 tehsils appeared in the assessment.

“To ensure uniform implementation across the province, the authorities conducted extensive training sessions for Tehsil Focal Persons (TFPs) of District Education Authorities (DEAs), superintendents and invigilators, enabling all field staff to fully understand the examination protocols, digital systems and monitoring procedures,” it said.

The revived examination introduced a technology-driven and highly transparent assessment system. For the first time, the examination process incorporated Artificial Intelligence (AI) supported e-marking, QR-coded answer scripts and a digital item bank, along with mobile applications for student attendance, answer-script scanning and real-time monitoring, it said.

“To ensure examination integrity, Pectaa generated four different versions of the question paper through a secure digital system, ensuring that no two adjacent students received the same paper copy.”

The Pectaa said it had also implemented the School Based Assessments (SBA) across Punjab.

“The SBA covered approximately 6.8 million students, running concurrently with the Grade-VIII examinations.”

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2026