KARACHI: The annual examinations for the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) for the year 2023 will be held from May 8 and May 22, respectively, in the entire country including Sindh, while the examination pattern for these has also been changed once again, it emerged on Monday.

According to the new pattern, the share of Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) in classes nine, 10, 11 and 12th has been reduced from 40 per cent to 20pc.

In the previous SSC and HSSC exams the MCQs had 40pc share but now according to the decision short-answer questions and detailed answer questions have been given a 40, 40 per cent share in the rest of the paper.

This decision was taken in the meeting of a sub-committee of the Steering Committee chaired by School Education Secretary Ghulam Akbar Laghari.

Secretary-Colleges Ahmed Bakhsh Narejo, chairmen of boards, acting director private institutions Sindh Profr Afzal Ahmed and private schools’ representative Tariq Shah also attended the meeting.

The meeting rejected the previous proposal of holding SSC exams from April 28 immediately after Eidul Fitr because the exams of classes six to eight were to be held during Ramazan.

Now, the exams of classes six to eight will be held a little after Eid, while the SSC, or matriculation, exams should start in the province from May 8 and HSSC, or intermediate, exams from May 23.

In the meeting, it was also decided to start the next academic year of 2023 from August 1, while winter vacations for this year, 2022, will be from December 22 to December 31.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2022