SHC seeks comments on plea seeking reforms in BIEK

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday directed a provincial law officer, Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) and others to file comments on a petition calling for implementation of recommendations submitted by a committee that investigated irregularities in Intermediate examinations.

The petitioner, Usaid Ahmed, submitted that Intermediate students who appeared in the examinations of 2022-23 faced problems due to a shortage of books during the academic year and mismanagement by board officials.

He submitted that students were shocked to see the poor exam results as a great number of them failed the examination due to significant changes in the syllabus and delayed availability of textbooks. Also, the examinations of optional subjects were lengthy that could not be completed with the allotted time.

The petitioner said the former caretaker government took notice of such mismanagement and constituted an inquiry committee comprising renowned educationists, which after going through the criteria for the examination pointed out a great number of incidents of mismanagement in the criteria, from the syllabus books to examination, in addition to checking and marking of answer script.

He submitted that the committee had mentioned in its findings that students were not provided appropriate time for preparation due to significant changes in the syllabus and delayed availability of textbooks.

He further said the committee had also pointed out delayed finalisation and dissemination of the paper pattern and scheme of studies, and lengthy examination papers. It was found out that a majority of assessment was carried out at home, and deputy examiners and head examiners never got the chance to carry out re-assessment or verification of assessment.

The petitioner said the committee had observed in its findings that the results were inadequate and non-uniform, quality of assessment and majority of assessment was done in the strictest manner, memorandum of co-examiners was not issued at all, cross verification of tabulation of the result was not carried out and in the last, the BIEK was being run and managed by people of low professional commitment, ethics and loyalty.

The petitioner submitted that the committee had recommended availability of textbooks both in Urdu and English, paper pattern and marking scheme be ensured prior to the commencement of academic sessions, and paper pattern and marking scheme should remain the same for at least last three years.

The petitioner submitted that the committee had also recommended that the number of assessment centres should be increased to at least 10 to facilitate centralised assessment, use of OMR ensured for assessment of MCQs to eliminate human error, and assessment time reduced.

He said the committee had recommended that in-house training of head examiners, deputy head examiners, co-examiners, factotum and invigilators must be ensured, and controller of examinations and all deputy controllers and IT managers who were responsible for conduct of the examinations of 2023 must be issued notices of displeasure at least due to non-observance of rules and regulations.

The committee had observed that the IT section of the BIEK was in a dire state in terms of safety, security, housekeeping and professionalism. He submitted that the inquiry committee had recommended that the IT manager must be immediately removed.

The SHC was informed that the students of Intermediate were still facing the same problems and if the recommendations by the committee had been implemented by the BIEK then, the problem would not have persisted.

The high court was requested to direct the chief secretary to comply with the recommendations of the committee, which was constituted by the Sindh government and remove the BIEK’s incompetent officials as recommended by the committee.

A division bench of the high court headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar directed the provincial law officer to file comments with regard to implementation of the recommendations of the committee.