In light of a report submitted by the fact-finding committee tasked with probing the controversial results of the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK), the Sindh Assembly parliamentary panel on Tuesday gave its nod to award 15 to 20% grace marks to intermediate first-year students in three subjects.
In January this year, the provincial assembly, accepting the demand of opposition parties, formed a parliamentary committee headed by Education Minister Syed Sardar Shah to investigate the controversial results of the intermediate board in the port city.
During today’s sitting, the parliamentary panel decided to allot 15% grace marks to intermediate first-year students in Math and Physics and 20% in Chemistry to those who failed to clear the exams.
In its report, the probe committee noted that political parties used the issue to gain political mileage for their benefit.
“During the past 10 years, students’ success ratio [in exams] remained below 47%,” it added. The committee also found that the books of physics and chemistry were provided late.
Stressing the need for updating software and hardware of the BIEK IT section, the report said: “35% of cases in pre-medical were affected due to data entry and in 64% cases, there were issues of retotaling.”
“25% of cases in pre-engineering were sent to the head examiner. There were re-totaling issues in 74% of cases in pre-engineering,” it added.
In violations of the rules, teachers took copies home for marking, the report further revealed. It said that chemistry, physics and mathematics papers were difficult for students.
Talking to journalists following the meeting, the education minister said that the inquiry committee report raised several questions about the examination system, BIEK infrastructure and administrative structure.
“Inter first-year students have been treated unfairly in exams,” admitted the minister.
He vowed to bring improvement in the board’s structure to ensure fairness in the examinations.
Students should not suffer due to the “incompetence” of the board, the minister said, adding that action would be taken against those employees who were found to be involved in the matter.
He added that the government did not make any changes to the recommendations of the inquiry committee.
