KARACHI: The Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) commenced for thousands of O/A level students across Pakistan, including Karachi, on Friday.

Long queues of vehicles were seen near the examination centres located in several parts of the city in the early morning and afternoon.

Roads leading to the Expo Centre, where one of the examination centres is located, were choked for hours on the first day of the exams.

Like every year, parents — who invested heavily in the children’s future in the shape of their school fees, tuition fees, examination fees and other expenses — are again seen doing the drill of getting the kids to their designated exam centres, which may also be at a long distance from their homes.

Traffic jams on roads leading to examination centres and lack of arrangements for waiting parents mark first day

However, at various exam centres, especially in DHA Phase VIII and outside Dawood Public School in Bahadurabad, a large number of parents were seen waiting for their children under the scorching heat as no proper arrangements were made for them to collect their wards.

They waited for hours, only to do the same thing again the next day. Parents with more than one child sitting for the exams go through double trouble as they drive back and forth while burning expensive fuel to get one exhausted child back home and pick up the other one to then wait for that one at his or her centre.

While there were doubts and fears earlier about whether the exams are going to go on as per schedule due to their cancellation across the Middle East, things are quite normal here.

Due to the impact of the war in the Middle East the exams have been cancelled as students in the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait will be graded on their existing work and teacher assessments.

The same scenario was feared in Pakistan but the CIE has said that for Pakistan the exams are going to proceed as planned.

“We are monitoring the situation with the British Council and if there are any updates to the planned exams, the students and schools will be notified accordingly,” a CIE spokesperson told Dawn.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2026