KARACHI, Aug 22 The forthcoming academic session of first-year students in government-run colleges and higher secondary schools of the city will be delayed at least by a month following an inordinate delay in issuance of mark-sheets to matric students by the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK).

According to a decision of the provincial education department steering committee, first-year classes in government colleges and higher secondary schools which fall within the ambit of the Sindh government and the city government, respectively, are scheduled to begin from September 1.

However, the process of admissions is still continuing and not likely to be completed before the end of September as thousands of matric students seeking admissions to colleges and higher secondary schools have not yet been issued marks-sheets by the BSEK.

Submission of marks-sheet is necessary to get admission to a college.

The Centralised Admission Policy (CAP) committee was entrusted with the task of completing the process of admissions to first-year classes in the government colleges and higher secondary schools of the city.

Although the CAP committee twice extended the date for acquiring and submitting admission forms, thousands of matric students who have not yet been issued mark-sheets fear that they may lose an academic year if the BSEK fails to issue them mark-sheets by Aug 27 — the last date for purchasing and submitting admission forms.

Most of the matric students who have not yet been issued mark-sheets are those who were allowed by the BSEK chairman to submit their examination forms without some required documents on the eve of their Secondary School Certificate (Part-II)

annual exams and those students whose results were withheld for using unfair means in exams.

A visit to the board office showed that hundreds of matric students were flocking to the BSEK offices to get their mark-sheets, but since the process of preparing mark-sheets was reportedly progressing at a snail's pace, they were seen returning disappointed.

However, an official of the BSEK claimed that since the unfair means committees tasked with deciding the cases of cheating in exams had completed its task, all those students who had been accused of cheating in exams and were cleared of the allegations would be provided with mark-sheets in a couple of days.

Regarding those students who were allowed to submit their examination forms on the eve of exams and whose results were withheld because of incomplete documents, the BSEK controller of examinations, Kalim A Kirmani, said that the delay in issuance of mark-sheets was happening because most of the candidates had not yet submitted their required documents, which they were supposed to submit along with their examination forms.

The documents, he said, included their registration forms and permission which they were supposed to get at the time of their transfer from one school to another after clearing their Class IX exams.

He said that another category was of those candidates who had submitted their forms on the eve of the exams and appeared in both the Class IX and Class X examinations, simultaneously.

He said that these students would not be issued with mark-sheets as under the board rules no candidate could appear in all papers of SSC (Part-I and Part-II) annual exams in one go unless they had attempted SSC (Part-I) examinations earlier.