KARACHI: The Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) is facing backlash due to its failure to issue detailed mark sheets after the release of Class IX results for Science and General groups. Over 175,000 students are left in limbo as they have not received their full marks, only information on whether they passed or failed each subject. This delay is preventing students from calculating their overall grades and percentage.
BSEK has announced that full mark sheets will not be available for another two weeks, in stark contrast to practices in other education systems like Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) and boards in Punjab, which provide provisional mark sheets immediately.
The timing of this issue coincided with a meeting about digitizing assessments, where discussions about e-marking and new grading systems were held. Despite claims of progress in digital evaluation, BSEK has yet to implement even the most basic digital transparency in its results process.
Further investigation revealed that although BSEK invested heavily in e-marking-compatible answer sheets, the mathematics papers for the Class IX Science group were assessed manually instead, abandoning the much-touted e-marking initiative.
Critics, including educators and parents, have expressed frustration over BSEK’s inefficiency and lack of modernization. The Controller of Examinations, Hamza Tagar, acknowledged the issues and assured that the board is working on resolving them, promising that students would receive their marks within a week.
