PESHAWAR: With half of the students enrolled in 300 government high schools of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa failing the recent matriculation examination, the elementary and secondary education department has embarked on an exercise to know the poor exam results, officials say.

Around 50 per cent of students of 205 government high schools were successful in the matriculation exam conducted by the Mardan Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, show official figures.

The board conducts the examination for the schools in Mardan, Swabi and Nowshera districts.

The situation was no different in Peshawar, Charsadda, Chitral, Mohmand and Khyber districts, where the Peshawar BISE held the matriculation exam.

Education dept starts exercise to ascertain reasons for poor results

Half of the students of 13 government schools in those districts failed to pass the exam, reveal figures.

The Abbottabad BISE declared a similar number of students from 32 government schools of Mansehra, Haripur, Kohistan and Abbottabad districts unsuccessful in the exam.

The Swat BISE exam results revealed that 50 per cent of the students in 14 government schools in Swat, Shangla and Buner districts failed the matriculation exam.

Every second student enrolled in 11 government schools of Kohat, Karak, Hangu and Kurram districts failed that exam conducted by the Kohat BISE.

A similar number of students from 11 government schools were unsuccessful in the matriculation exam held by the Dera Ismail Khan BISE and that of four government schools in the exam by the BISE Bannu this year.

Both boards conduct the examination in most southern districts of the province.

Meanwhile, a high-level meeting was held on Monday to discuss the poor performance of the students of government schools in the exam.

Secretary for the elementary and secondary education department Mutasim Billah Shah chaired the meeting, which was attended by chairmen of all education boards, directors of the ESE department, director of Directorate of Curricula And Teachers Education, director of the Private School Regulatory Authority, and director of the professional development.

A senior official privy to the meeting told Dawn that a warning would be issued to the principals of the schools whose 30 per cent students failed matriculation examination.

He said a penalty would be imposed on principals if students fared badly in the exam next year, too.

The meeting decided that the district education officers would convene a meeting of the school heads to ascertain the reasons for the failure of such a large number of students in the exam.

It also decided that the Directorate of Curricula and Teachers’ Education would set papers for annual examinations for grade 6th and 7th of the schools which have performed poorly, the official said. It also decided that education boards would set papers for grade 8 of such schools.

Some participants blamed the failure of students in the exam on senior school teachers, who were promoted to senior positions but were “unable” to teach senior classes of the schools, sources said.

They said such teachers previously taught Urdu, Islamiat or Pakistan Studies to lower classes but they were promoted to the SST posts to teach ninth and 10th graders, a task they couldn’t do.

Meanwhile, parents of schoolchildren voiced concern over poor exam results and said the annual budget for the elementary and secondary education department totaled Rs250 billion but despite that, the performance of the education department was pathetic.

“Neither politicians nor bureaucrats take interest in the improvement of educational standards in government schools as only the children of poor people are enrolled there,” a schoolchild’s father told Dawn.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2023