KARACHI: Following the Sindh government’s approval of the outsourcing of board examinations, all matriculation and intermediate examination boards of Sindh will no longer be able to conduct examinations themselves as a private organisation will do the work of taking the exams and publishing the results instead.

The decision was taken by the provincial government in view of complaints of irregularities in the matriculation and intermediate examinations and their results in Sindh.

Spokesman for the Sindh Chief Minister Rasheed Channa told Dawn that the provincial government had decided to outsource the examinations in Karachi and other parts of the province.

Mr Channa said that a tender notice would be issued to invite third parties like IBA Sukkur, the National Testing Service (NTS) in Islamabad and other reputable institutions to conduct the examinations.

He said that the Sindh government had been spending Rs300 million per annum for conducting the examinations and the complaints about unfair practices continued unabated.

Recently, Section Officer Mohammad Zubair of the Department of Boards and Universities wrote a letter to the heads of all matriculation and intermediate boards of education in Sindh, in which he stated that they had received several complaints of corruption during the preparation of the examinations and results.

It is due to this that the Board and Universities Minister Ismail Rahoo approved the outsourcing of the examination system for all boards in a phased manner beginning with the upcoming 2023 annual examination.

It is decided to automate or digitise the examination process with the objective of transparency and fairness to discourage corruption.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2023