Karachi schools and students continue to face admit card delays before matric exams

KARACHI: A day after the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) pushed back the matriculation examinations by three days, many schools, students and parents were still facing difficulties in obtaining admit cards, leaving uncertainty over examination centres just ahead of the papers.

The matric exams had originally been scheduled to start on April 7, but were postponed on Sunday night and are now set to begin on April 10. According to the board, around 385,000 candidates will appear at 530 examination centres across Karachi Division.

On Monday, a large number of representatives of private schools gathered at the BSEK office in an effort to collect admit cards. However, many of them said they did not receive a clear response and returned disappointed because of the lack of progress.

The board acknowledged the admit card problem and said it was in the process of shifting from a manual system to a digital one. It said the software application had come under excessive load and suffered a temporary disruption.

The delay has added to anxiety among students and their families only days before the examinations. Parents said students should have been concentrating on revision and preparation at this stage, but were instead dealing with the stress caused by the non-availability of admit cards.

Revised examination schedule issued

Later in the evening, the BSEK released a revised timetable for the annual examinations of class nine and class 10 students. Under the new schedule, the first paper will be held on April 10 and the final paper on May 6.

According to the revised plan, science group examinations will take place in the morning shift, while general group papers will be conducted in the afternoon. The board also said all students would sit their exams at the examination centres already assigned to them.

Private schools body criticises board management

In a statement issued on Monday, the All Sindh Private Schools and Colleges Association said the situation showed mismanagement at the BSEK. The association welcomed the Sindh government’s decision to delay the examinations by three days, but said it remained in students’ interest for exams to be held on time.

The association blamed the crisis on the ‘incompetence of board chairman Ismail Rahoo’. School representatives also expressed concern over alleged discrepancies in the allocation of examination centres and questioned the board’s explanation regarding data processing problems.

They said the examination system had already been digitised in recent years, and therefore the explanation of server failure was not convincing. They also said admit cards should have been issued at least a week before the examinations and questioned whether arrangements made at the last minute could ensure correct entries on admit cards and smooth management inside examination halls.

MQM-P lawmakers warn of protest

Separately, MQM-P members of the Sindh Assembly said in a statement on Monday that the delay was not accidental but reflected a systemic failure of the education board and corruption. They described the delay as an ‘educational tragedy’ and ‘administrative terrorism’.

The lawmakers said that while the world was integrating Artificial Intelligence into education and educational management, Karachi’s board officials were unable to ensure the availability of basic documents before the examinations despite what they called misleading claims that preparations had been completed.

They demanded that all admit cards be made available immediately in downloadable form and called for action against officials responsible for what they termed ‘criminal negligence’. They also called for facilitation desks for students and parents and warned of protests if the matter was not resolved within the next 24 hours.