Shalimar Town and many other areas of Lahore.
Sources privy to the developments said Cluster Training & Support Centres (CTSCs) in each district of the province, (30 to 40 CTSCs in Lahore alone), were supposed to distribute the question papers to the exam centres failing in their respective jurisdiction after receiving the same from the PEC. They added, in Lahore, the CTSCs had not received the papers by 1:30pm which caused panic among the heads of CTSCs. However after repeated requests, the CTSCs were able to receive the question papers by 2:00pm after which these centres started delivering the papers to their respective exam centres.
Keeping in view widespread mismanagement in the ongoing Class-V exam, the chief minister’s announcement to award tablet-computers to students obtaining prominent positions in the Class-V and Class-VIII exams is difficult to understand and materialise as well. One wonders as to how the PEC authorities would determine prominence of the students who faced extraordinary situation to attempt the exam.
Meanwhile, according to a handout, the chief minister has ordered inquiry into mismanagement in the Class-5 examination and directed Punjab Education Minister and Secretary Schools to investigate the matter and submit a report. He also said mismanagement in the examination was intolerable. When contacted, the PEC chief executive officer Nasir Iqbal Malik, said he felt sorry for inconvenience faced by the students.
Admitting that there had been delay in the conduct of exam, Nasir Malik said this could be seen as a tradeoff. ‘The students are supposed to come to schools. This is not a loss. Our efforts are for institution building in the larger interest of the public’, he explained and added there was always margin of error in innovation.
According to him, hectic efforts were being made to revamp the whole system and to make the examination credible with little human resource. Nasir Malik said multiple versions of question papers were introduced to make the exam credible, adding that complexity of the operational dynamics should also be understood.