KARACHI, May 6: The fate of about 100 female students, whose admit cards pertaining to HSC (Science) annual examinations have been withheld for no fault of theirs, still hangs in the balance, despite an intervention by the Sindh governor’s secretariat.

It was feared that a good number of students may not be able to appear in their papers scheduled for Tuesday.

Sources in the board said a letter from the controlling authority of the board was received on Monday, but the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi, failed to comply with the orders. The authorities were still insisting that the principal of Government College for Women, Burnes Road, should give them in writing that the attendance reports were re-scrutinised at her end and she found the students eligible for examinations under the existing rules, added the source.

In the meantime, hundreds of affected students from at least three colleges visited the BIE again on Monday to know their fate while their papers were scheduled for May 7.

Negotiations, wait and see game, and protests continued till evening, while the students were given to understand that the BIE had once again guided the superior authorities on the subject and any general waiver regarding compulsory 50 per cent attendance was expected any moment.

A mother staying in the sun, along with her daughter, said she had been in touch with an official in the governor house for the last couple of days on the issue of admit cards and finally was told to rush to the BIE office as competent authorities had issued directives to the BIE on Monday morning.

However, she was flatly refused once again and told that in the light of the governor house letter, the board had to check that the attendance percentage of the affected students was bona fide.

Even female students and their parents were made to stay outside the office of the BIE chairman for hours in a hot and humid day in a painful condition, and they were not sure about their Tuesday papers. Almost all the key officials at the board stayed in the rooms guarded by BIE security personnel as well as police.

A couple of the parents expressed the view that the ill- equipped BIE officials should stop testing the nerves of hundreds of students and their parents in the city.

It is obvious that BIE had neither its own system of recording the attendance of students flawlessly, nor it had been able for years to muster any support of the Sindh education department, which governed the colleges and higher secondary schools in the public sector, regarding any foolproof attendance system and any even-handed and fair implementation of the attendance rules that were kept in abeyance for years, added the parents.

Students claimed that intermediate class students in other parts of the province had already appeared in half of their papers this year without any extra conditions. No other boards than BIE, Karachi, had taken the Sindh Cabinet’s decision on compulsory attendance so seriously, which was ultimately making the students in the city to suffer despite the fact that conditions and teaching affairs at the college did not encourage the students to attend their classes in many cases, they added.

Parents concerned on Monday continued to approach the elected representatives, college and board authorities. They were of the view that Board was misinterpreting the governor house letter and wrongly verifying the attendance from a record that needed to be updated even in the case of women’s college students.

The BIE should not demand any fresh certification of attendance or stress for any specific statement, giving exact attendance position of each and every student. During the last week, the college authorities had admitted that attendance was calculated wrongly and that was why admit cards of so many candidates were returned to the board, added the students, saying that while BIE, despite knowing that it was being cheated again by colleges on the issue of attendance, did not seek any of statements from principals, then why in the case of women colleges or Premier College it was so much pertinent and was not ready to accept any revised version.

A deputy secretary to the governor, Muhammad Mudasir Khan, on Monday, informed the BIE chairman that if the principal of Sharah-i-Liaquat Women’s College felt that there was an error in the attendance, she should give a certificate to this effect.

“She should convey the names of the students having 50 per cent attendance to you, to whom admit cards may be issued”, the deputy secretary said.

In another correspondence on Monday, the principal of the Women College on Shahrah-e-Liaquat, Prof Akhtar Sultana Kazi, informed the chairman that Prof Nazish Kazmi, who had submitted a revised attendance position of 95 students to the board earlier had acted purely on her behalf and she was authorised to issue letters as the college wanted to save precious year of the students in question.

A senior academician said once Prof Nazish was authorised by her college principal, the BIE had got very little room to dispute her letter of May 3 and as such it should have given a fair chance to affected students, who were cleared by the college for issuance of admit cards.

Prof Nazish in her letter, which was again endorsed by Prof Sultana on May 5, had requested the BIE to return admit cards of 95 students, including 60 of the pre-engineering group, who had 50 per cent attendance, but that was miscalculated earlier, added a source in the women’s college.

Meanwhile, students of Premier College demonstrated at BIE for the release of their admit cards. They smashed windowpanes.

Principal of the Premier College No 2 was also surrounded by his students at the BIE. Referring to the delay in the disposal of admit cards, an official of the examination department said that the BIE could hold separate examinations in a couple of papers missed by the affected hundreds of students provided they were declared eligible for appearing in examinations.

Meanwhile, a press release of Town Council, North Nazimabad, said that in order to facilitate the students in acquisition of their admit cards withheld by the board the Town Nazim and Naib Nazim called on the City Nazim Naimatullah Khan who contacted the Sindh Governor and requested him for a relief to the affected students and a fax message was sent to the Board asking it to issue admit cards to all those who are certified afresh by their respective principals that they had 50 per cent attendance.

However, till evening no report about implementation of the directives from the high-ups was received while the chairman was maintaining that he would issue admit cards without any delay, provided the governor asked him to do so.