KALAYA, March 21: Over 2,600 boys and girls could not appear in the secondary school certificate annual examination due to conflict in the Orakzai Agency while local authorities did not make alternate arrangements.

Official sources told Dawn that a total of 2,672 students including girls could not appear in the annual examination, which started in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal area on March 16. Over 6,000 candidates, majority of them boys, had applied for the annual examination in the agency.

The sources said that students studying in 17 schools in upper and central tehsils of the agency failed to appear in the examination due to lack of arrangements. Local authorities have set up only three examination centres in the lower tehsil.

Agency education officer Lal Zada Khan said that militants had destroyed schools in upper and central tehsils and local population had migrated to relief camps in other districts. He said that local authorities could not make alternate arrangements for the displaced students.