KARACHI, March 28: The recent decision of the Inter-Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) that a student must be minimum 15 years of age at the time of passing out his or her secondary school certificate examination will not be applicable to those currently studying in Class IX and X.

The IBCC’s decision, which is aimed at bringing a halt to the general trend of 12 and 13-year-old students passing matriculation exams and admitting children below five years in Class I, has created anxiety among parents of Class IX and X students who were below the minimum age limit fixed by the IBCC for the students passing their matric exams.

The parents were uncertain whether their children, who won’t be fulfilling the new criteria of minimum age required for clearing matriculation exams, would be allowed to appear in the forthcoming annual examinations or if they would be detained in their class till they attained the minimum age required for passing their matric exams.

Responding to Dawn’s queries, a member of the IBCC and Chairman of the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi, Prof Anwar Ahmed Zai, said the IBCC’s recent decision would not be applicable to the students of Class IX and X whose examinations were scheduled to be held in a couple of months. He made it clear that the IBCC’s decision was aimed at bringing a halt to the trend of admitting children below five years in Class I, and it would be applicable from the new academic session of schools.

Prof Zai, who had also served as a director of schools in the district government, said: “In fact, the IBCC decision has been necessitated under the rules framed by the National Education Policy of 1998 as a student must be five years old at the time of his admission to Class I so that by the time he passes his matriculation examination he is 15.”

Sources in the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, also admitted that a number of students below 13 and 14 years were clearing the matriculation examination as several private schools had been giving admission in Class I to children below five years.

A number of educationists, meanwhile, denounced the private schools’ trend of unnecessarily increasing the span of pre-primary classes of both the Montessori and kindergarten systems of education from two years to four years. They said young children needlessly spent four years in pre-primary classes before being admitted to Class I.

“As a matter of fact, parents have no choice but to get their children, even below three years, admitted to the Montessori system’s initial class, i.e. nursery, without realising its psychological, physical and biological effects on their children merely because certain prestigious schools do not give admission to students in Class I directly,” an expert deplored.

However, some parents think the IBCC’s recent decision regarding age limit has diminished the prospects for talented students to take double promotions on a basis of extraordinary performance in their examinations.