ISLAMABAD: The heads and teachers of schools supervised by the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) seem to be hiding their alleged negligence, as they did not send admissions of the students who fail in send-ups, encouraging drop outs.

Like every year, this year too, many studentscomplained that their schools/colleges had not sent their 9th class admission to Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE), asking them either to repeat their class or submit their admissions as private students.

Sources said that schools and colleges have been doing this just to get good results in the FBISE exams to receive appreciations from education ministry and government for producing best results.

Interestingly, in many schools, these students had been enrolled from nursery and one class and throughout the school years, they passed annual exams, but now their own schools is treating them failed students. But, there is no accountability of teachers and schools heads, on whom government spent billions of rupees in these years.

Parents blame teachers for students’ failure to clear send-ups

“Action should be taken against principals and teachers for not preparing students well for class 9th board examination and education ministry should hold inquiry to know the reasons of failure of teachers and students,” said a parent, who wished not to be named, as he was struggling to convince a principal to send his son’s admission as a regular student with triple fee, as single fee deadline had passed last month.

Sources said that this practice may encourage drop out as many students after being dejected leave their education and many parents are unable to deposit triple admission fee after deadline lapses. “At a time, when education ministry has been spending huge funding on out of school children, there is a need to stop such kind of drop out at 9th and 11th year level,” said an official source, adding that stoppage of admissions on basis of attendance is something positive things, but not qualifying in send ups is an injustice with the students, as it was responsibility of the teachers to teach students well.

“Up to 5pc stoppage of admission of students poor in studies is still acceptable, beyond five percent raises question mark on teachers efficiency,” he said.

The FDE itself supervising this exercise of stopping students admissions, as in October last year, it had issued an official letter, stating that admission of students in board classes would be processed with the FBISE strictly “on the basis of performance in the send-up test. It is crucial that the send up test be conducted rigorously in students, making them aware that their admissions would be forwarded to the FBISE only if they pass the sendups,” read the letter issued on October 9,2024.

It said that students , who fail to meet the required standards in the send-up test, or do not fulfill the necessary attendance criteria, will not to be admitted as a regular candidates for the board exams, instead their admissions would be processed as private candidates,” read the letter.

When contacted Federal Secretary Education Mohyuddin Ahmad Wani defended the decision of schools and colleges and stated that admissions were sent on merit and on the basis of sendup tests results.

“I directed for repeat of sendup thrice and many students have passed the tests and their admission is being submitted as regular students,” he said and added that in case, if the admissions were stopped on a large scale, he would order a third party audit of all admissions. “After holding first send up, stopping admission up to 15pc was still acceptable, but beyond this is not fair, I will look into this issue and action would also be taken against teachers and heads if they dropped large number of students,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2025

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