PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Boards’ Chairmen Committee on Monday formed a three member committee to analyse results of students of intermediate and matriculation examinations of the previous three years to formulate a formula for the promotion of students without examination due to Covid-19 outbreak, according to officials.

Confusion persists about how to promote students to the next classes without intermediate and matriculation examinations in light of the federal government’s decision, officials told Dawn.

The federal government has announced that the students will be promoted without taking the intermediate and matriculation examination.

One of the education board chairmen told Dawn that the three-member committee would analyse the promotion percentage of students, especially of those, who had performed well in the 10th and 12th examinations after securing relatively low marks in the ninth and 11th examinations.

Students’ performance in last three years’ exams of intermediate, matriculation to be analysed

The committee was formed in a meeting of the province’s all seven education boards here on Monday.

The meeting ended without reaching any conclusion about the students’ promotion without board exams.

Chairman of the Bannu Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Sharif Gul was made the committee’s chairman and secretary of the Peshawar board Bashir Ahmad and secretary of the Abbottabad board Dr Shaista Irshad Khan its members.

The committee after going through the three years’ results of the intermediate and matriculation examination will decide about marks to be given to the 10th and 12th graders in addition to those obtained by them ninth and 11th grades, respectively.

A board chairman told Dawn that it has been observed that sometimes students got low mark in part one of the intermediate and matriculation examinations but obtained very high marks in the second one due to hard work.

“For instance, a student gets 11th position in Part I of the intermediate examination but secures the first position in the overall examination after hard work in Part II.

“We are now working on how many additional marks should be given away to them in the final part of the both board exams,” he said.

The chairman said though all heads of the seven education boards had been working on a mechanism for the promotion of students but none of them favoured promotion without examination.

“Since the lockdown has almost ended in the province, why the government is reluctant to hold board examinations,” he said.

The board chairman said the examination hall won’t have as much people as was seen in bazaars on Monday after the relaxation of the lockdown.

“The examinations should be held with changes in the paper pattern,” he said.

He added that students couldn’t be promoted on the executive order and rather, it would require proper legislation.

The chairman feared that the decision could be challenged in the court of law as it was a violation of the board’ calendar under which an education board can issue certificate after conducting examination.

Meanwhile, the federal government told the inter-board chairmen committee of all provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan during a meeting to submit recommendations to their respective provincial governments for the promotion of students without examinations.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2020