KARACHI, Feb 21: The Sindh Governor's order on the postponment of the examinations, which were scheduled to be held from Muharram 1 to 10, is practically effective only in the case of examinations of class I to VIII.

According to sources in the academic circle, the statementissued after a high-level meeting, chaired by the governor on Friday, appeared to have created confusion.

Till Saturday afternoon, the only source of information to many of the educational managers in the city was reports appearing in newspapers or flashed by electronic media.

Students, especially candidates of professional examinations, kept calling the educational institutions and newspaper offices seeking some sort of explanation.

A senior educationist said that higher authorities should, at least, have consulted the universities, educational boards and education department governing the schools and colleges in public sector, before taking such decisions.

The extent of the confusion could be gauged from the fact that the University of Karachi had even issued notification for the postponement of the MBBS and other examinations. It had to issue another notifications only a couple of hours later to withdraw the earlier one and clarify that the schedule of MBBS examination would remain unchanged by the Governor's order.

The notification issued first said: "In pursuance of the order of the Chancellor/Governor of Sindh, the MBBS examinations and all other examinations which were scheduled during 1st to 10th of Moharram have been postponed."

The next notification said that the notification for the postponement of the MBBS and all others examinations from 1st to 10th of Moharram had been withdrawn. "All the examinations will be held as per schedule," it added.

For a Dawn survey, the two controllers of examination at the Board of Intermediate Education and the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, said that they were already not scheduling any examination in Ashura days. At present, the NED University of Engineering and Technology, where teaching for the new session has recently commenced, was also not conducting any examination, said a source in the university.

The only beneficiaries of the governor's order are the students of Class I to VIII at government and private schools, who have already taken majority of their annual examination papers. Students would have to remain in the state of examination for another two weeks, added school teachers and parents.

The situation is also disturbing in the case of students of private schools who went on weekly off on Friday and were expected to return on Monday for examination. We are pursuing our wards to continue for examinations on Monday as we are not sure about the implementation of the decision on postponement at private schools, said a parent, adding that there was no option left but to bear the torture till Monday morning when private schools would come up with their own decision.

There was no information till Saturday night from private universities or other institutes on the subject. When contacted, in the meantime, an educational official said that all schools and colleges in public or private sector were bound to ensure implementation of the notifications and orders issued by the Sindh government.