SSC examinations start in KP amid paper leak rumours

PESHAWAR: The Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations got underway in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday under eight educational boards amid rumours that a question paper at one of the boards had been leaked.

The alleged paper leak prompted calls for measures to overcome anomalies and ensure secrecy and transparency during the examinations.

Some reports suggested that the Islamiat paper for grade-10 at Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Bannu had been leaked on Friday before the end of the two-hour duration of the paper. Chairman of the board Arshad Ali, however, dismissed the reports.

He told The News that a screenshot of the paper was circulated via WhatsApp at 10:54 am, just six minutes before the ending time of the paper, which cannot be called a paper leakage by any definition.

“By that time hundreds of students had already done their paper and had come out of the examination hall. So, terming it a paper leak would be unfair,” he said. Still the management of the board came into action and identified the person whose WhatsApp had been used for the purpose, he said.

A complaint against him was lodged with the district administration and he was arrested. The chairman said that the board management took care to ensure secrecy of the papers. “The question papers are dispatched to all the centres on the scheduled date without submitting them to the bank,” he said.

Analyses showed that ensuring secrecy of paper and fair play in matriculation and intermediate examinations had been a chronic issue, which required selfless, strict and transparent measures to overcome.

The mushrooming of boards during the past two decades exacerbated the situation. There should have been one major board in the province with its regional offices in various regions. The mafias of private schools and the different categories of employees in the educational boards are also the major impediments in putting things in order.

Ensuring transparency and secrecy during examinations should not have been a matter of concern in this modern age when everything can be digitized and the best practices inside the country and abroad could be followed.

But here the matter is different. Every stakeholder has his own vested interests and in such a situation fair reform can never be introduced and implemented, said a senior officer in the education department.

However, he insisted that a lot has been done to prevent paper leakage and ensure secrecy of papers from conduction of the exam till assessment of papers and declaration of results, he said.

He maintained that the mechanism for paper preparation and sending it to different halls was not so simple that it could be leaked somewhere somehow. “Actually, several teachers are assigned to prepare a paper of a subject and no one among them is sure enough that the paper which he has prepared would be given to students. Similarly, duplicate papers are prepared to prevent leakage,” he argued.

The major issue with the boards is that of overemployment and the categories of the employees, he said. The boards actually have two kinds of employees - permanent and those on deputation. The permanent employees are the one recruited by the boards from time to time, while chairman, controller and secretary of various boards are posted on deputation there.

If the chairman, secretary and controller serve in line with the whims of the permanent employees, things remain smooth. But in case of tension among them, an untoward situation is created to malign each other, a former controller examination told The News.

Private schools also play a key role in worsening the examination system. Alleged deals between private schools and the officials of the boards to buy examination halls is an open secret. Buying an examination hall means getting invigilation staff of one’s choice or having halls at ineligible locations, the official explained.

Everyone involved in the system has his own axe to grind, said another official. The government functionaries remain interested in recruitment of their dear ones in the board. The officials of the Elementary and Secondary Education Department have their own interest.