KARACHI, Aug 16: The Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi, has declared results of HSC Part-II, Pre-Engineering and Science General groups' annual examinations-2004 on Sunday.

As many as 21,284 candidates, including 6,347 female candidates, took the pre-engineering examinations, out of which 11,468, including 3,764 females, were declared pass. The overall pass percentage remained 53.94, which was about 8.5 per cent higher than that of the last year.

Another 3,029 candidates, including 1,128 females, appeared in the Science General group examinations, out of which 1,265, including 627 females, passed the examinations, while the pass percentage remained 41.85.

The top three merit positions in the pre-engineering group were secured by two female and one male student, all of government colleges, while in the science general group, which comprises candidates with computer science as major, female students of a private college clinched the top three slots in the merit list.

Sahrish Afsar Siddiqui, roll no 596599, of the St Joseph's College for Women, clinched the first position in the pre-engineering examination by securing 988 out of 1,100 marks, while the second position in the group was bagged by Mehreen Javed, roll no 596351, of the PECHS College for Women, who secured 982 marks. Farhan Tanwir, roll no 583317, of the Adamjee Science College, got third position in the group with 981 marks.

All the position holders of the Science General group belonged to the DHA Degree College for Women. Sumera Hanif, roll no 648758, Madiha Saeed Sheikh, roll no 648729 and Hiba Zahoor, roll no 648781, bagged the first, second and third positions, respectively, by securing 999, 963 and 954 marks.

According to the BIE statistics, the female students superseded the male students, as their pass percentage remained as 59.35 in the pre-engineering group, while it was 55.63 in the Science General group. The pass percentage of male students remained as 51.64 in the pre-engineering and 33.65 in the Science General group.

The break down of successful candidates in the Pre-Engineering group is as follows: Male- A 1 grade, 324 (2.17 per cent), A grade 1,133 (7.59 per cent), B grade 1864 (12.49 per cent), C grade 2,456 (16.46per cent), D grade 1,818 (12.19 per cent), E grade 86 (0.85 per cent) and additional subjects (pass) 23 (0.15 per cent).

FEMALE: A 1 grade 263 (4.15 per cent), A grade 767 (12.09 per cent), B grade 1,013 (15.97 per cent), C grade 1,221 (19.25 per cent), D grade 485 (7.65 per cent), E grade 3 (0.05 per cent) and additional subjects (pass) 12 (0.19 per cent).

SCIENCE GENERAL: Male- A 1 grade 1 (0.05 per cent), A grade 29 (1.53 per cent), B grade 121 (6.38 per cent), C grade 271 (14.29 per cent), D grade 206 (10.86 per cent) and E grade 10 (0.53 per cent).

FEMALE: A 1 grade 24 (2.13 per cent), A grade 107 (9.45 per cent), B grade 248 (22.01 per cent), C grade 208 (18.46 per cent), and D grade 40 (3.55 per cent).

The results of 24 candidates of pre-engineering group were withheld either for want of information or on account of using unfair means, while results of another 6 candidates of science general group were withheld for want of correct information.

In all 182 institutions sent their candidates up for the pre-engineering examinations, out of which six institutes failed to see any of their candidate successful.

There were 61 colleges or higher secondary schools whose results remained less than 30 per cent, while results of 25 institutions remained below 40 per cent and 64 produced below 90 per cent results. There were 17 institutions, including nine government colleges, whose results remained between 90 and 100 per cent.

In the pre-engineering group, the six colleges with 100 per cent results are as follows: The Agha Khan HSS (144 candidates), Trinity Methodist Girls HSS (10), Seven Oaks College for Girls (2), Pakistan Steel Cadet College (39), Iqra College for Science and Commerce (8) and Memon Girls College (2).

The colleges whose results remained between 90 and 100 per cent in the Science General group examinations were: Foundation Public HSS, DHA Degree College for Women, PECHS Government College for Women and Commecs Institute of Business Education.

A maximum of 1,017 students appeared in the pre-engineering examination from the Federal Government Urdu Science College, out of which 230 cleared the examinations and as such the college results remained 22.62 per cent.

In the Science General group a maximum of 134 students appeared from the Ghazi Foundation, whose results remained 11.19 per cent. In his brief remarks at a ceremony organized for the position-holders, the BIE chairman, Prof Iftikhar Zaidi, said that it was commendable that the female students had once again dominated the male students.

INTERVIEWS: Talking to media men, majority of the position-holders maintained that their distinctions in the examinations were made possible by their sheer hard work, proper guidance by teachers and attention of their parents.

Four of the six position-holders of the pre-engineering and science general groups mentioned that they had now decided to opt for business administration or accountancy education in higher classes, instead of continuing science education, particularly in computer sciences. They were of the view that the IT education, which was introduced late in the country, was not helping the graduates in securing good jobs.

The first position-holder in the pre-engineering examination, Sahrish Afsar, wanted to become a chartered accountant as this ensured higher salary. She urged the authorities concerned to amend the pattern of examination question papers. She also opposed the decision of denationalization of her college, St Joseph's.

Mehreen Javed, the second position-holder of the engineering group, who wanted to pursue the telecommunication engineering education at the NED university, said that boys were more intelligent than the girls, but they did not pay attention to their studies and often turned careless. She deplored that private electronic channels in the country were not presenting any significant educational programmes.

Farhan Tanwir, the third position-holder of the pre-engineering group said that the medium of education made no difference to students as the prime objective of the studies was to acquire knowledge. He wanted to be a telecommunication engineer.

The first position-holder in the Science General group, Sumera Hanif, said that the IT curricula and books should be upgraded, otherwise it would be difficult for Pakistani graduates to get a place in the job market. She also complained of mistakes in textbooks of intermediate science.

Madiha Saeed, the second position-holder of the Science General examination, said that attendance rules should be implemented seriously in the colleges. She also called for holding monthly tests at government colleges. Hiba Zahoor, who secured third position in the group, said that there should be uniform system of examination at intermediate level.