ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain on Wednesday referred the matter of holding matriculation level composite examination to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Education following a criticism from opposition benches.

The speaker took the decision when four members of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) through a calling attention notice slammed the government’s decision of holding the matriculation examination on composite basis instead of separate exams for 9th and 10th.

Nayyar Bokhari of the PPP moved the calling attention notice and drew the attention of the house towards the decision to change examination system for 9th and 10th by the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE) saying the decision had caused grave concern amongst the public.

Minister of State for Education Anisazeb Tahirkheli said it was not only the decision of the FBISE, but the system was being adopted throughout the country by all the boards. She said the decision was taken at a conference of inter-provincial education ministers held in Peshawar in June, last year. She said all the three provinces had decided to implement the system from this year while Sindh had sought one year time for its implementation. She said the composite examination system would be implemented in Sindh in 2008-09.

Nayyar Bokhari claimed that actually the Sindh government had refused to implement the system as it believed that the students would feel burdened after this decision.

Raja Pervez Ashraf of the PPP said at a time when other countries were adopting semester system to assess the performance of students on quarterly basis, the government was adamant to implement 50-year old system in the country.

Another PPP MNA Mehreen Anwar Raja requested the speaker to refer the matter to the committee of the house for further discussion.

PPP’s Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani said that Sindh was protesting over this decision of the government. He asked the minister to explain the rationale behind this move. He also called for referring the matter to the committee.

Responding to the points raised by the PPP members, Ms Tahirkheli said it was a misconception that there was opposition from any province. She said Sindh had only been given one year concession while other provinces had already implemented the decision. She said the decision had been taken to reduce financial burden on the parents and students who earlier had to pay the examination fees twice to the boards.

Ms Tahirkheli said institutions would hold internal examination for 9th class and the performance of students would be evaluated. She said the decision to hold composite examination was taken after adopting a consultative process. She said the format of the question paper was also being changed.

Giving details, she said, there would be 20 per cent marks for multiple choice questions, 50 per cent for short answers and 30 per cent for descriptive and long replies. She said the purpose of changing the format was to discourage the trend of passing the exams by mere memorisation. The minister, however, said that she had no objection if the matter was referred to the committee.

Parliamentary leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Dr Farooq Sattar, whose party is a coalition partner in Sindh government, said that provincial governor Dr Ishratul Ibad and Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim had talked to Federal Education Minister Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi on the issue and now the whole policy would be reviewed. He, however, did not elaborate his point.

Later, the speaker referred the matter to the education committee of the house.