Private schools alliance seeks one-week delay in Karachi matric exams

KARACHI: The Grand Alliance of Private Schools Associations in Sindh has urged authorities to defer the matriculation examinations by one week, saying arrangements remain incomplete and flawed while a large number of students have yet to receive their admit cards.

According to the reported details, Class 10 examinations are scheduled to start on Tuesday, while Class 9 papers are due to begin on Wednesday. However, more than 350,000 students were still without admit cards a day before the examinations. Many candidates were also unaware of the locations of their assigned examination centres.

The Secondary Education Board had said admit cards would be uploaded to its portal on Saturday evening. But administrations of both private and government schools reported that they were unable to access them. Efforts to download the cards from the portal were said to be returning error messages, while schools that did receive some admit cards said the number issued to them was incomplete.

With the examinations approaching, students in Karachi were reported to be spending their time trying to locate admit cards and examination centres instead of preparing for their papers.

Board of Secondary Education Karachi Chairman Ghulam Hussain Sahu said the situation would be brought under control soon and maintained that the examinations would go ahead as scheduled.

We are working around the clock, and the situation will be under control by this evening.

Sahu said work on centre fixation had begun in January, but added that some people on the board were incompetent while others had ulterior motives. He also said the school associations were pursuing the same objectives and insisted that exams would not be postponed.

exams will not be postponed

The chairman further claimed that 80 per cent of schools had already received their admit cards and that the remaining 20 per cent would also get them soon.

On April 3, four days before the examinations, an inspector from the Larkana Board was appointed as the Karachi Board’s controller of examinations. Ahmed Khan Chhutto was appointed to the post on a one-year deputation.

According to the reported details, Chhutto had previously served as Inspector of Institutions at the Larkana Board and did not have prior experience in conducting examinations. It was also reported that the new controller was still trying to understand the full scope of the arrangements.

More than 300,000 candidates are appearing in the Class 9 and Class 10 examinations under the Karachi Board, making the conduct of the annual exams a matter of concern for students and schools alike.