LAHORE AS all the nine examinations boards of Punjab are set to conduct the Secondary School Certificate (Matric) Annual Examination 2014 from Saturday (today), four of these boards are without regular chairmen, three without controller of examinations and one without a secretary.
The absence of top managers of these Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISEs) on a regular basis exposes not only bureaucratic apathy towards the examination system, but raises a question over the fair and transparent conduct of the examination in this scenario.
The BISEs without regular chairmen are BISE Faisalabad (where Principal of Government Post Graduate College Faisalabad Dr Ijaz Farooq Akram is having acting charge as Chairman) and BISE Bahawalpur (where Chairman of BISE Multan Chaudhry Rasheed Ahmad is having additional charge as Chairman). Interestingly, Chaudhry Rasheed is also retiring after attaining the age of superannuation on March 09.
The additional charge of BISE Sahiwal rests with BISE Lahore Chairman Dr Muhammad Nasrullah Virk while at BISE Gujranwala Secretary of the same board Prof Aman Ullah is having acting charge as Chairman.
The BISEs without regular Controller of Examinations are BISE Sargodha, BISE Sahiwal and BISE Faisalabad while BISE Lahore is without a regular Secretary these days. It is pertinent to mention here that most of these top slots have been waiting for regular incumbents for several months now.
Academic circles are critical of the Punjab government for not ensuring timely placement of the top brass at the examinations boards and running the affairs under the makeshift arrangements despite sensitive nature of the job.
According to sources in the Higher Education Department Punjab, a summary was moved to the Chief Minister Secretariat recently regarding the posting of regular incumbents at the said boards, but no final decision had been communicated to the department so far. The sources said those recommended for the abovementioned posts included Dr Muhammad Zareef as Chairman BISE Faisalabad, M Zahoor as Chairman BISE Bahawalpur, Dr Anwaar Ahmed as Chairman BISE Sahiwal and M Aslam as Chairman BISE Gujranwala.
It is indeed a matter of great concern that top slots especially related to the sensitive job of conducting examinations are being looked after by individuals on additional/ acting charge basis. One wonders as to how Chairman BISE Lahore can look after the affairs of BISE Sahiwal which is around 170km away from the provincial metropolis? It is also important to note here that in case some mishap occurs in the conduct of examination, it will be hard to fix a responsibility.
Meanwhile, at a press briefing about the SSC Annual Examination 2014, BISE Lahore Chairman Dr Muhammad Nasrullah Virk, who is also Chairman of the Punjab Boards Committee of Chairmen (PBCC), said over 2.1 million candidates would appear in the SSC Annual Examinations 2014 across the province starting from Saturday (today).
Muhammad Nasrullah Virk, who was flanked by Controller of Examinations Anwer Farooq, further said 431, 279 candidates would appear in the SSC Examination in the jurisdiction of BISE Lahore.
The Chairman further said the BISE Lahore would issue coloured roll number slips to candidates from the Higher Secondary School Certificate (Intermediate) Annual Examination 2014 in order to curb the practice of impersonation. He added the Lahore Board had also developed its personal data centre and server room where five heavy duty server machines had been installed.
About monitoring and assistance to the examination staff at the exam centres, Muhammad Nasrullah Virk said a mobile based mechanism had been developed in collaboration with the Urban Unit of the P&D Department through which centre superintendents could seek police help in case of law and order situation, duty confirmation and help from the BISE in case more material was required.
To a question about the marking mechanism, which has been a great concern among the candidates, the PBCC Chairman said maximum 50 scripts would be given to examiners through an automated system. He said the mechanism had been developed through which only highly qualified teachers would be given the task to mark the papers. He added the government was most likely to make examination duty as mandatory for the teachers.
Muhammad Nasrullah Virk also talked about the Section 144 imposed by the government during the conduct of exam, monitoring mechanism, training workshop for examiners and online registration and issuance of roll number slips.
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