ISLAMABAD: International Baccalaureate (IB) exams will be conducted as per schedule from April 29.

O Level exams, meanwhile, will be held from May 15 whereas AS and A level exams will go ahead as per schedule.Earlier, these exams were to begin from April 26.

According to officials of the education ministry, O Level exams were rescheduled due to a surge in Covid-19 cases.

“We are working hard to support efforts by schools and authorities in Pakistan to keep students safe and help them progress with their education. As the Federal Minister for Education has announced today, we have been discussing this carefully with education officials in the government,” a statement issued by Cambridge International Examination (CIE) read.

“We are pleased to announce that with the help of the government of Pakistan we will be holding all Cambridge International AS & A Levels as timetabled, so that students can progress to the next stage of their education,” the press release said adding, “We agreed with the government that we will only hold exams in Pakistan from 15 May for Cambridge O Level and IGCSE exams. We are now looking urgently at how best to make this work. We will not switch to school-assessed grades. We will update schools with more information next week.”

Meanwhile, when contacted, regional manager for Pakistan of IB Uzma Shujjat said IB decided to conduct exams in Pakistan as per the already announced schedule from April 29. She said IB has a dual route, the examination and non-examination route, but in Pakistan most schools opted for the examination route.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2021