Sindh govt striving to lessen human involvement in board exams

KARACHI: The Sindh government has been acting on a plan to upgrade the working of the public sector examination boards in the province to ease and speed up the process for the students applying to obtain educational documents and certificates through maximum application of information technology.

Sindh Minister for Boards and Universities Muhammad Ali Malkani said that any student applying to obtain any educational certificate from an examination board should not be required to go through a cumbersome procedure.

He said the students’ facilitation centre established at the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi (BIEK) was one major step in this regard in the right direction. The provincial boards and universities minister appreciated that the newly inaugurated facilitation centre at the BIEK had established a one-window operation for the issuance of the required academic documents to the students in just one hour.

After inaugurating the students’ facilitation, Malkani visited the OMR (Optimal Mark Recognition) section of the BIEK. He said the Sindh government had been introducing reforms in the examination process at a fast pace to ensure that there should be minimal human involvement in the assessment of the answer scripts and compilation of the examination results.

BIEK Chairman Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah gave a briefing on the OMR and e-marking systems being developed at the examination board for assessing the answer copies, and fast and accurate compilation of the examination results. The provincial minister asked questions about the new result preparation systems and also gave directions to the relevant officials to further improve the exam-related mechanisms.

He asked the board officials that the one-window facility should particularly be available for the students belonging to the suburban areas of Karachi. Malkani said that the board should also introduce proper online systems to digitally offer all its services relevant to the candidates appearing in the examinations.

The BIEK chairman informed the provincial minister that very soon a system would be evolved, which would not require every candidate to attach photocopies of eight to ten documents with their application form to obtain any academic certificate.

He explained that the board office duly kept the relevant academic and identification documents of the candidates in its record so the applicants would be required to merely present their computerised national identity cards/B-Forms and provide enrolment numbers to easily and speedily acquire their certificates.

Shah said a candidate would be required to fill in a single application form to get any document from the facilitation centre at the board office.

The universities and boards minister said the Sindh government would ensure greater involvement of the latest technology to minimise human interference in the examination systems. He said the use of the latest IT and digital technologies would help lessen the number of result-related complaints by the concerned candidates and their parents.

He said the Sindh government would try its best to ensure that the next Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations in the province began in March next year as per the routine academic calendar. He said the provincial government would also try to ensure that the public sector examination boards in Sindh matched the examination and result schedules in other provinces.

He said the application of the OMR and e-marking systems would begin in August 2025 and experts would train teachers and students for the purpose. He said the e-marking system would assess the answer scripts in the next year’s exams.

He said the library facility at the BIEK was being maintained and it would be upgraded.

Answering a media person’s query, the provincial minister said the maximum age limit had been increased from 62 to 65 for any candidate applying for the position of vice-chancellor of a public sector university.