KARACHI, June 13 Reservations expressed by three secondary and intermediate education boards are holding back the formation of the proposed Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education Nawabshah, Dawn has learnt.

This is despite the fact that the Sindh government has allocated funds for the establishment of the board in the current financial year. However, the education board has not yet started functioning.

Sources in the education department said that the chairmen of the three boards — the Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education Hyderabad, the Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education Sukkur, and the Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education Mirpurkhas — believed that with setting up of a new education board in Nawabshah, the territorial jurisdictions of their boards would be curtailed, and would adversely affect their financial positions.

A meeting of the chairmen of the boards held recently gave expression to the opinion that the establishment of a new education board in Nawabshah would result in a sharp decline in the boards' income generated by candidates' enrolments, registrations and examinations fees, the sources told Dawn.

The chairman of one of the education boards, who presided over the meeting, had informed the education department about the proposals they formulated in the meeting, the sources said.

The participants of the meeting decided that the Sindh chief minister and the senior education minister should be requested to take a final decision regarding the whole issue, including the territorial jurisdiction of the boards, financial aspects and transfer of employees from the three boards to the proposed education board in Nawabshah, the sources said.

The towns of Kandiaro, Bhiria, Naushero Feroz, Moro, Dadu, Johi, Saeedabad, Hala, Shahdadpur, Tando Adam, Sanghar and Singhoro had been proposed to be included in the remit of the education board of Nawabshah, the sources said.

These towns would fall within the remit of the board, because, according to a feasibility report, the distance of these towns from the proposed education board of Nawabshah is considerably short as compared to the existing three education boards of Hyderabad, Sukkur and Mirpurkhas, the sources said.

In this regard, the sources cited an example of the town of Kandiaro. They said that the town was 80 kilometres away from Nawabshah, while the distance between Kandiaro and Sukkur was 105km. Thus Kandiaro would fall within the remit of the education board of Nawabshah.

The candidates of the above-mentioned towns, who used to get themselves enrolled/registered with the education boards of Sukkur, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas, would be required to get themselves enrolled/registered with the proposed Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education Nawabshah — once it starts functioning — to appear in their secondary school certificate and higher secondary school certificate exams, the sources said.

Regarding the transfer of employees of the three boards to the proposed education board of Nawabshah, the sources said that all those employees who had domiciles of the above-mentioned towns would be transferred to the new board.

Besides, the sources added, whoever wanted to join the new board, would be preferred for transfer.