KARACHI: After much delay and while still withholding 95 results, the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) announced the results of Higher Secondary Certificate Part-II science pre-medical, medical technology and home economics group on Monday.

According to Mohammad Imran Khan Chishti, the passing percentage of pre-medical students this year is 52.78, which shows improvement when compared to last year’s passing percentage of 49.92. A total of 21,106 candidates appeared for the examination — 4,166 were male and 16,940 female. Some 1,776 males and 9,363 females passed, bringing up a total of 11,139.

All the top 10 pre-medical positions, among which there was a tie for the second position, were bagged by female students. The controller of exams said that although 95 BIEK exam results had been withheld owing to an ongoing investigation by the Anti-Corruption Establishment, they hoped to release those soon, too.

Three students of PECHS Government College for Women bagged the first and second positions. Asiya Khalid was first with 992 out of 1,100 marks while Marva Tanveer and Hiba Khalid were both second with 991 marks each. The third position was taken by Rimsha Imran of St Lawrence Government Girls Degree College.

The top three students when speaking to the media said that they only attended their college classes for doing practicals and they spent the rest of their time studying at coaching centres. When asked how come students who don’t have 75 per cent attendance were allowed to sit for exams, the controller of exams said that they only recognised the certification of attendance given to them by college principals. “Beyond that, how can we know what has been going on?” he said.

Meanwhile, Rimsha Imran, who attended St Lawrence Government Girls Degree College said that she had good marks in Matric and that she could have gone to PECHS College, too, but she decided not to do that and opted for St Lawrence. “Our teachers worked very hard to help us understand the concepts in the course. They took extra pains to explain things to us and most of us didn’t require any tuitions,” she said.

Noorulain Anwer stood first with 1,020 out of a total of 1,200 marks in the home economics group. Hibah Masood and Aymin Nadeem were both second with 988 marks each while Fatima Ikram Zuberi was third with 982 marks. All the candidates are students of Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan Government College of Home Economics.

Only three candidates appeared for the medical technology exam and all three passed, bringing up a 100pc passing percentage.

BIEK chairman Mohammad Akhtar Ghori said there was a need to rethink the syllabus. He said he also wanted to see the standards of the board and its staff improved. These days, he said, he was actively involved in automation of the board. “After that there will be no room for any errors here,” he said.

All the position holders were awarded the Dr Ishratul Ibad gold medal with cash prizes — Rs100,000 for the first position holder, Rs50,000 for second and Rs30,000 for the third.

Director general of the National Accountability Bureau, Sindh, retired Col Siraj Naeem was the chief guest on the occasion. He said he grew up in Islamabad but he had always found Karachi people to be very talented and they had above average intelligence but somehow they lacked the confidence to excel in life when compared to people from other cities of Pakistan. He urged the students to never divert their attention from their education. “This is your time to gain knowledge. So remain on track while also sparing some time for extra-curricular activities because it will help open your mind,” he said.

He advised the intermediate board also to work on the lines of the O-Level and A-Level system and concentrate on multiple-choice questions and fill-in-the-blanks for examination papers as they helped build intellect while learning by heart from course books was no good.

About the 95 withheld results, he said there was no room for dishonesty in education but he hoped the BIEK would be able to move beyond the scandal.

Published in Dawn September 6th, 2016