KARACHI – All arrangements for the annual matriculation examination have been finalised at the exam centres, which have been reduced from 436 to 225 for facilitating the students and maintaining better vigilance to discourage unfair means, said Governor Sindh Dr Ishratul Ebad.
He said this while speaking to a delegation of journalists at the Governor’s House on Friday.
“The reduction in exam centres would prove helpful for providing security to the students during examination. The students may face problems of prolonged load shedding but problem would be resolved by April 22,” said Ebad.
He said that students, who could not submit their examination forms within the deadline, would not be allowed to appear in the annual exams and will have to give supplementary papers.
The Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) had announced many dates for submitting examination forms and no further dates would be announced, he added.
The Sindh governor said the BSEK management was asked to reduce the exam centres from 436 to only 170 but were increased up to 225 due to unavailability of space.
He added that the number of examination centres would be further reduced for better vigilance next year.
To a question regarding freedom of student organisations, he said that the education sector would be a provincial subject after devolution of powers from the federal government, but the decision would be taken after consultation with all stakeholders.
He further said that the government is reviewing the orders of the Supreme Court regarding dismissal of contractual employees as per the apex court’s orders.
BSEK Acting Chairman Anwar Ahmed Zai briefed the delegation about the arrangements made for the examination.
He said that the BSEK has formed supervisory teams to monitor the entire process of examination, adding that the team would visit exam centres to review these arrangements during the exam.
He also said that the board has assured that the non-teaching staff would not be deployed as invigilators for the examination.
He added that the board has also improved the dispatch system of the question and answer sheets and the dispatcher would not be allowed to leave the exam centres until the exam ends.
This would allow the board management to avoid leakage of question papers before the start of the examination, he said.
He also said that the board has decided to close down photocopy shops in the vicinity of the exam centres to avoid copy culture and use of unfair means during the exam.
He discussed with the delegation how to improve the examination system by adopting international standards.
