PESHAWAR, July 29: The establishment of eight boards of intermediate and secondary education in the province is yet to mitigate the problems of students to the desired level, sources say.

The BISE was set up in 1961 to deal with the secondary education in the province. Before the setting up of the BISE, the University of Peshawar was looking after the affairs of secondary education in the province.

With the increase in the number of students, a need was felt for setting up of more BISEs. Former NWFP governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah had flouted the idea of setting up more BISEs to facilitate students in their hometown.

He had ordered establishment of four more boards in Abbottabad, Bannu, Swat and Malakand in 1990. These were followed by setting up of new boards in Mardan and Kohat in 2001 and Dera Ismail Khan in 2007.

“This has caused huge financial cost to the government. The government has spent millions of rupee for constructing new buildings to house these BISEs, besides cost on staff has increased manifold,” said an official at the BISE Peshawar.

He said the BISE Peshawar had not been consulted for setting up new buildings. “We advised the government to increase staff and construct new buildings at the BISE’s premises in Peshawar but that fell on deaf ears,” he said.

Sources said that BISEs were being run from the students’ fee and the government did not give any grant. “D.I. Khan, Malakand and Bannu boards face acute financial problems because these boards have insufficient number of students,” they said.

They said after the establishment of more BISEs, students were facing various problems. They complain that their papers are checked by teachers of different boards. Besides, the respective BISEs find it difficult to shift answer sheets to other boards because of lack of transportation facilities and staff.

The main problem affecting the students across the province and Fata is the decision to empower each board to prepare one paper for the examination. The papers prepared by Peshawar, Mardan and Abbottabad boards are considered difficult for Swat, Dera Ismail Khan and Malakand boards because these boards fail to complete courses in time.

Although guidelines were given to prepare question papers for the examination of SSC and intermediate, those were not followed, the sources said.

Same dates and papers for the examination also create problems for students. “If a paper is leaked in Bannu, the same is cancelled all other boards in the province,” the sources said.