RAWALPINDI, Oct 10: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), Rawalpindi, has withheld the results of over 1,000 candidates, who had appeared in the Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) Part-I Examination 2001, Dawn has learnt on Wednesday.

The affected students and their parents are perturbed over the cold attitude of the Board officials, who are reportedly not ready to even listen to them.

A group of the affected students and their parents told Dawn that the Board had withheld their results for violation of some rules, but the Board officials were not telling them the details. They said it was the duty of the Board officials to inform the students, why their results had been withheld.

It has been learnt that the Board has withheld the results of those candidates, who had failed in one or all subjects in the HSSC Part-1 Examination-2000 and reappeared in 2001. “The BISE has recently changed some of its rules, but did not inform us about it”, the affected students said. According to the new rules, those regular or private candidates, who fail in all or some papers in the part-1 examination, cannot appear in the same examination, next year. They will have to appear in the annual composite examination.

As the students were not aware of these new rules, they showed themselves as regular candidates in the examination forms. The students and their parents, while talking to Dawn, said it was the responsibility of the Board officials to inform the intending candidates about changes in rules and regulations.

The affected students held the controller examination, Mamoon Abbas, and the chairman, Zahid Khan Lodhi, responsible for all the problems, being faced by them. They said it was the responsibility of these two persons to check all examination forms and inform such candidates about the Board’s new rules and regulations before issuance of roll numbers. “This just shows that the Board officials blindly issue roll numbers to all the candidates, who apply for the examination,” they charged. “This is absolutely absurd because it means that only submission of examination form is necessary. Even an ineligible candidate can get roll number to take examination and his eligibility or otherwise will be checked later,” an angry candidate commented.

The Board officials, when contacted, blamed the students for not filling in the examination forms correctly.

The students said the controller examination had asked them to submit written request, therein confessing their mistake, for the release of their results. “The Board officials just want to add to our miseries,” the mother of an affected student said.

It may be mentioned that earlier, the controller (examination), Mamoon Abbas, had allegedly violated the Board’s decision by not preparing the back-up of the SSC results at the Pakistan Computer Bureau (PCB). The results of the SSC Examination 2001 were compiled in the newly-established and ill- equipped Computer Cell of the Board for the first time.