PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Friday rejected two petitions challenging the holding of O and A level examinations by the Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) in the country amid the surging coronavirus cases.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed M Attique Shah and Justice Syed Arshad Ali pronounced a short order after the completion of arguments by lawyers for the petitioners and respondents.

The petitions were filed by Syeda Hajira Haider and some other students, who requested the court to declare illegal the decision of the respondents, including the federal government and CAIE, about the non-cancellation of O, A and AS level examinations.

The petitioners sought the court’s orders for the respondents to cancel the examinations, insisting that the holding of exams will put them to great disadvantage.

They also called for the holding of O, A and AS level exams and marking of papers on the basis of the Teachers Assessed Grades (TAG) system in the country like the other Zone IV countries.

Lawyers Yaseen Raza and Asfandyar appeared for the British Council and CAIE respectively and contended that the holding of the said examination was a policy matter and it won’t be appropriate for the high court to interfere in it.

Students had challenged exams by CAIE during pandemic

They said the National Command Operation Centre had decided that the O, A and AS level exams would be held as per schedule.

Lawyer Yasin said the decision about the mode to be adopted to assess the performance of the students of O and A level was a policy matter.

He said since the grievance of the petitioners was related to the crisis of Covid-19 pandemic, the competent forum to consider and formulate the policy was the NCOC.

The lawyer added that the said decision was based on expert advice.

He said around 87,000 students had been registered with the CAIE and they won’t be showing up for exam every day.

The lawyer said the students, who had registered but did not want to appear in the May/June sessions, were at liberty to appear in the Oct-Nov session with no additional fee.

He pointed out that around 11500 students were private with no school performance to be graded on.

The lawyer questioned whether the high court could stop CAIE from conducting the exam as it was not a state, provincial or local authority and was not in the jurisdiction of the high court.

He said the SOPs would be strictly followed in the exams.

The lawyers for petitioners contended that since Mar 2020, educational institutions had largely been closed due to the complete lockdown imposed by the government to stem the spread of coronavirus.

They said even though online classes were conducted, students were unable to benefit from them like the in-person learning, so they’re not prepared to take A Level examination.

The lawyers also said not all students had an access to online classes.

They said students were given grades last year after the cancellation of exams on the basis of mock examinations, tests and internal assessments, attendance, and other relevant factors.

The lawyers said surprisingly, in the current year, the government had decided to go ahead with those exams though the Covid-19 positivity rate was much higher than that time, hospitals were occupied to the maximum capacity, and even teenagers were admitted to coronavirus wards.

They said many countries in the Cambridge Examination Zone IV had cancelled those exams, so students from all other countries of the zone were going ahead with Teachers Assessed Grades and would be awarded higher grades.

The counsel added that the same would cause the grade threshold to be very high negatively to the misery of students in Pakistan, who intended to go abroad for higher studies as their chances of getting scholarships would be lower compared to other candidates.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2021