DERA GHAZI KHAN: A tug of war between the Govt Boys High School No 1 and the Centre of Excellence over the allotment of management information system (EMIS) code ahead of annual exam has put the future of matriculation students of the latter in uncertainty as it is creating issues in their registration for the annual exam, sources told Dawn.

The high school was converted into the Centre of Excellence in 2015 and it was allotted the EMIS code, important for registration of students of the public educational institutes.

Later, the high school was restored despite the existence of the Centre of Excellence and EMIS code, earlier allotted to the latter, was reallotted to it. Without an EMIS code, the Centre of Excellence has not got the status of a government institution.

When this correspondent contacted District Education Authority Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Masood Khan, he said the case of EMIS code allotment had been sent to the programme manager of the programme monitoring and implementation unit (PMIU) of the Punjab Schools Department, Lahore.

It is pertinent to mention the case for the EMIS code was dispatched to Lahore on Nov 17 by the competent authority but the future of students of the Centre of Excellence still in uncertainty without having an EMIS code.

On condition of anonymity, an official of the education department told Dawn the education CEO was not the competent authority to re-allot the EMIS code to the reinstated high school as it was a prerogative of the programme manager PMIU of the schools department Lahore.

It is also worth mentioning that both the institutes, the high school and the centre of excellence, were housed in the same building that earlier belonged to the former.

Deputy Commissioner retired Captain Muhammad Ali Ejaz said he would pursue the case to facilitate the students of both the institutes.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2020