KARACHI, Feb 24: Teaching activities in the city colleges and higher secondary schools have been badly affected by various factors, including the violence that had erupted in the aftermath of the assassination of Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto, election activities and negligence of the relevant officials.

It would be pertinent to mention here that the classes at city colleges had begun in the middle of September 2007.

The session is scheduled to end in the last week of April 2008. Despite the passage of almost half of the academic session, the first year’s course in a number of city colleges has not been completed by around 50 per cent.

The situation is quite disturbing for around 85,000 first year students as very little time is left in the examination scheduled to commence in the first week of May.

A number of issues have contributed to this delay like the attack on PPP leader Benazir Bhutto’s welcome rally on Oct 18, an attack on a mini-bus outside the University of Karachi, killing five students and leaving four others injured and then the violence triggered in a response to Ms Bhutto’s assassination that forced almost all the educational institutions to remain closed for about a week or so.

Apart from this, the Feb 18 elections’ activities also had its impact on the teaching activities as the teaching staff of the city colleges went on training for their election duties, suspending teaching activities at colleges. The teaching activities also remained suspended on the occasion of students’ weeks at the colleges.

The academic session in the colleges and schools of Karachi was scheduled to begin on Aug 1, 2007 but due to the negligence of the education department officials, the commencement of the session got delayed.

One of the major causes of that delay was reportedly the late announcement of the matriculation results by the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK). As a result, the admission process failed to kick off on time.

Usually, the matriculation examinations take place in the first week of May and the BSEK announces the results in the middle of July every year, but this time due to a delay in the issuance of consolidated marks sheets to the students, the Centralised Admission Policy (CAP) Committee was compelled to extend the admission process again and again to accommodate the maximum number of students.

The academic sessions of all the faculties including pre-medical, pre-engineering, computer science, commerce and arts started in the middle of September.

The pace of submission of application forms for admission to the city colleges was also affected due to the delay in the issuance of SSC marks sheets by the BSEK.

The BSEK had been directed by the higher authorities to expedite the process of results and meet deadlines set by the education department so that classes of first year could be commenced on time, but to no avail.

All the colleges and higher secondary schools are required to complete the course at least 10 days before the commencement of the exams.

It means that the students have hardly two months to complete the entire syllabus, which is an uphill task in the given situation. It is feared that this year a majority of first year students may taker their exams ill-prepared, which will not only affect their results but have a negative impact on their entire academic career.—PPI