KARACHI, April 12: About 150,000 city students preparing for annual intermediate examinations are upset as they understand that the April 30 referendum in the country might result in postponement of their examinations for the second time.

Despite claims that arrangement for the examinations were being made to meet the schedule, under which examinations are required to be held from April 25, the examination conducting agency is clueless.

The city administration has so far not intimated the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi, about the date from which the college teachers and college buildings — the two major components of the examination process — would be required for referendum purposes, said a source in the board.

An official at the election commission said that the list of government employees for election duties were being finalized, but the commission was not in a position so far to give any final dates for the engagement of the employees in referendum duties. ”We are working on day-to-day directives and also waiting for the referendum manual, which would clear doubts about workings of election staff as well,” the official added.

“We are already behind other students of the province as far as intermediate examinations were concerned, while on the other hand chaos and failure of the authorities in taking up the exam related matters appropriately for the sake of examination sanctity was also not helping us to concentrate on our studies,” said a college student.

However, senior educationists and parents linked the latest annoyance among students with slackness witnessed in the case of Secondary School certificate examinations, which were delayed for a considerable period on one pretext or other. Had the authorities sitting within the four walls of the Sindh Governor House been careful while addressing the education and examination related problems there would have no chaos and concern among the students and teachers, said a parent.

The Steering committee of the Sindh Education department had fixed dates of March 1 and April 15 for the commencement of the SSC and HSC annual examinations in the province. However, the authorities and other officials of the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, had been able to inform their controlling authorities in the Governor House well in advance that due to circumstances, that included shortage of staff at the board and restrictions on the use of other resources, it would be difficult for the board to conduct examinations on time.

After a lot of hue and cry by students and other circles, the BSE announced on March 5 that SSC examinations for regular candidates would be delayed for about 23 days. Obviously the examinations were put off till March 30 owing to the failure of the board to provide admits cards to all candidates on time.

The postponement of SSC examinations and the consequent revised date sheets issued by BSE also provided a chance for the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi, to delay its examinations, scheduled to be held from April 15. The Board pleaded before the competent authorities that it would not be in possession of some educational institution premises well in time, as those would already be in the use of BSE for SSC examinations.

However, independent sources attributed the postponement of HSC examinations in Karachi to some other factors as well, including the delay in the finalization of any policy regarding students who were likely to be affected due to compulsory 75 per cent attendance of students at their respective colleges.

Now the students and the BIE are left again to cope up with the situation created after the announcement of April 30 as a referendum day.

Talking to this reporter, the chairman of BIE, Karachi, Muhammad Sharif Memon, said since his board was already late in conducting examinations for reasons beyond its control, he had planned not to lose any more day. “We have planned to issue the date sheets by April 17, under which examinations would be held from April 25.”

Anticipating that college teachers and college premises would be engaged for referendum duty hardly for three to four days prior to April 30, BIE is making all preparations to conduct the examinations on April 25, 26 and 27. Restricting to the proposed date sheets, the papers which were likely to be postponed due to holding of referendum would be re-announced for some other dates after the completion of the first phase of examinations, he added.

However, staff at various sections of the board were of the view that situation would become unmanageable as a number of BIE officials would also have to go on referendum duty, as they were required to do on the occasions of elections in the past.

For the sake of any sequence in examination works and smooth conduct of examinations and giving students all opportunity to concentrate on their studies, it would be appropriate that examinations be held after referendum, maintained some college teachers.