The credibility of Pakistani educational degrees in the global job market will be significantly strengthened after the phenomenon of the new examination system is made known to the international world, said Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Chairman Syed Mumtaz Hussain Shah in his exclusive interview to Pakistan Today. “It is an invisible revolution that will uplift the standard of education in the country,” said the chairman who has earlier served as EDO (education) in Multan and Faisalabad as well as director administration and DPI secondary education in the Punjab Education Department.
Since the establishment of Faisalabad Board in 1988, he is the 15th chairman who took over in 2009. “The new computerised examination system will go a long way to rectify the inherent flaws of the past system and will block all avenues of corruption or foul play from the education sector,” Mumtaz Shah said and added the critics of the new computerised examination system, introduced in Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Faisalabad, were mostly the perpetrators or beneficiaries of booty mafia whose interests were badly hurt after the implementation of a dynamic, comprehensive and foolproof examination system.
The board has a jurisdiction comprising Faisalabad, Chiniot, Jhang and Toba Tek Singh. During the current year, a total of 492 exam centres were set up to conduct class 9 and 10 examinations. According to statistics, there are 2.2 million students in matriculation while the total number of intermediate students is more than one million.
“In order to make an optimum use of information technology for the first time, we introduced the pioneering online registration system that enabled each student to get himself or herself registered through Internet,” he said. Giving the details of the new system, the board chairman said for the first time as a matter of secrecy, the candidates from each school were allotted roll numbers of different sequences that led to the allotment of different examination centres located in the vicinity of their schools. He explained that the appointment of invigilating staff was also made at random through computer and no option was left to any body to secure appointment at the centre of his or her choice. “The same procedure was adopted for practical exams for science students,” he said.
Mumtaz Shah claimed the foolproof computerised examination system had plugged all the loopholes of corruption or cheating that were rampant in the past. In the objective papers, the candidates were provided with computerised marks sheets and in this category the marking will be done by computer. “A totally different procedure was introduced in subjective papers that were put under a state-of-the-art bar code system that is 100 free from any sort of tampering”, he said. Once the answer sheets were received back from the candidates in the examination centre, the page bearing the student’s name and roll number was detached from the answer sheets that were being processed with the bar codes only.
“Impersonation (sitting in the exam in place of another candidate) has been made impossible in the new system,” he said. Students are required to submit their photos for the first time only on registration for class 9. The same photo will be used in 10th, 11th and 12th year exams. He made it clear that students’ database would be interlinked with National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) and any incompatibility would automatically come to the notice of the authorities. “These are the revolutionary steps that in the long run will reinforce the confidence of international community in our educational degrees,” he claimed.
He praised the level of interest displayed by the Punjab government under the leadership of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and hoped the state investment in education would bring rich dividends in the coming years. Acknowledging the role of the private education sector, he said there was 40 percent stake of private schools in the Punjab.
