KARACHI, April 13: The Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, has decided to examine class IX students in the subjects of chemistry, biology and computer studies from book-I this year, it was learnt officially.

A meeting of the BSE academic committee was held on Thursday with chairman, Brig (retd) Shafiullah Qureshi, in the chair, to consider the examining of class IX students from book-I in the subjects of chemistry, biology and computer studies, in a situation when the part-II of the books in question were not available in the market.

Under a directive of the Sindh governor, issued in consultation with the federal government, class IX students of educational board have been required to appear in HSC part-I exams in 2006, instead of taking any composite examination next year. As per the resolution of the Committee of Chairmen of educational boards of Sindh, class IX exams are scheduled to be held from June 20 and the BSE has started preparations in this regard, said an official.

However, the Sindh Textbook Board so far has been unable to market Urdu and Sindhi versions of part-II books of chemistry, biology and computer studies during the year.

The meeting finally decided that since the STB had failed to float the books in time, while very little time had been left for teaching of the subjects, the question papers of the three subjects would be drawn out of part-I books this year.

Regarding practical exams of the SSC part-I science group, it was decided these should be held under the old scheme of studies, like the previous years. This was also viewed during the meeting that the BSEK would invite applications for class IX annual exams, 2006, from students as soon as the Sindh education department issues the related notification. In the meantime, a source in the education department said that the high-ups were delaying the notification regarding the conduct of class IX exams in 2006 as they wanted some thing in writing from their superiors on the matter.