ISLAMABAD: The city’s oldest and once one of the best boys model colleges - Islamabad College for Boys (ICB) G-6/3 - is striving hard to reclaim its lost glory.

This year, it produced outstanding results in the intermediate exams. The college, which used to clinch top positions in the board exams, could not maintain its supremacy for years.

However, this year, it produced outstanding results amongst all 13 boys colleges being run under the supervision of Federal Directorate of Education (FDE).

According to results of the Higher Secondary School Certificates (HSSC) exams announced by Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE), ICB-G-6/3 overall got 85.88pc and 3.50 GPA, clinching top positions among all boys colleges. It was followed by IMCB G-10/4 (with 79.83pc and 3.49 GPA) and IMCB I-8/4 (82.52pc and 3.29 GPA). The results showed that 10 students of this college got more than 1,000 marks with Hamza Asif bagging 1,051. Similarly, ICB G-6/3 also clinched the top two positions in Secondary Schools Certificate (SSC) exams among all boys colleges of FDE with Ali Ashfaq obtaining 1,082 marks followed by Abdul Wahab Akram with 1,081 marks.

Principal says this year it produced outstanding results among all 13 FDE boys colleges

Meanwhile, its 24 students got more than 1,000 marks in the SSC exams.

Despite producing overall best results among boys colleges, the institution could not get positions in FBISE results while two girls colleges - IMCG G-10/2 and IMCG (postgraduate) F-7/2 - got third positions in the board exams.

In the Humanities Group of SSC exams, Maira Bukhari from IMCG G-10/2 stood third bagging 1,042 marks. While in Humanities Group in HSSC, Faiza Younis from IMCG (postgraduate) F-7/2 stood first by getting 1,018 marks.

“I am thankful to my staff who did lot of hard work for producing best results among the boys colleges. As far as positions in the board, we are very optimistic that in coming years we will achieve this target too,” said ICB Principal Dr Ali Ahmad Kharal.

Dr Ali is a renowned educationist and in the past also served as the director general of the FDE. He said ICB used to be number one college but with the passage of time its standards saw a decline, but “now we are again on the right track and have proved it in the recent results,” he said.

It is relevant to note that this college had in the past produced a number of police officers, including several inspector general of police (IGPs) and top bureaucrats of the country. However, gradually, it could not maintain its standards due to various reasons.

A faulty member of the college said that in the past even foreigner students (children of diplomats) used to get education from this college because of its high standards. He said overall education standards of all FDE-run schools and colleges used to be best until the ‘90s.

“We are working hard to reclaim the past glory of this historical college and are very near to this target,” the college principal said. To a query, he said currently around 5,000 students were pursuing their education in the institution and many of them were very brilliant and had the potential to get top positions.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2022