Mirpurkhas board unlikely to meet deadline for matric, Inter exam result announcement

The financial crisis gripping the Mirpurkhas Education Board has reached a critical point, largely due to the provincial government’s apparent lack of interest. As a result, there is a strong possibility of an extraordinary delay in the announcement of examination results.

Despite the minister of universities and boards instructing all provincial education boards to announce their results by September 15, the Mirpurkhas Board is unlikely to meet this deadline.

The board’s troubles are compounded by the absence of key officials, including a permanent chairman, controller examination, secretary and audit officer. Although the board needs just 70 employees, it currently employs 270, further straining its already tight finances.

This situation was exacerbated when the provincial government decided that education boards should no longer collect examination and enrollment fees from students in government schools and colleges, promising instead to cover these costs through government grants. However, these funds have been consistently delayed and distributed in incomplete installments, leaving all boards specially the Mirpurkhas Board in a precarious financial position.

The crisis has been particularly severe for Mirpurkhas, where teachers have not been paid for checking answer sheets for several years. Understandably, they are now refusing to do the same for free.

An official from the board’s examination department revealed that 95 percent of the board’s students are from government institutions that do not pay fees. There has been no increase in examination and enrollment fees for nine years, and with rising costs for essential materials, including printing paper, ink, furniture and other services, the board’s expenses have swollen.

The acting chairman of the Mirpurkhas Education Board, Zulfiqar Shah, while talking to The News, acknowledged the challenges, citing the large staff numbers and delayed government grants as significant hurdles. However, he vowed that efforts are underway to secure the cooperation of the teaching community, with the goal of announcing Matriculation and Intermediate Pre-Medical exam results by the last week of September.