BIEK to give 15% additional marks to first year intermediate students

KARACHI: Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar on Friday directed the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) to give the students of pre-engineering, pre-medical and general science Part-I additional marks in their exams.

The directions were issued by the CM when he was approving recommendations of the fact-finding committee, formed to investigate Intermediate Part-I students’ getting unusually low marks in 2023.

CM Baqar said that it had been decided on the committee’s recommendation that the students of pre-engineering, pre-medical and general science would be given 15% extra marks.

"It has been decided that all the students would be given 15 extra marks in Maths, 12 in Physics, Chemistry and Statistics each and six in Zoology and Botany each," he said. 

After the committee submitted its report to the chief minister, the BIEK in charge IT section was ordered to be removed from his post.

The committee instructed to make papers' patterns and a scheme for giving marks prior to the beginning of the educational year. It said the paper pattern and marking scheme would be implemented for three years.

The Sindh CM directed to increase the number of papers inspection centres to 10 in the metropolis. He added that the MCQs papers should be checked with an optical marks recognition system so that there is no mistake.

CM Baqar also directed that employees including head examiners, examiners and invigilators should be trained, adding that the rules and regulations of BIEK should be strictly implemented.

"The controller of examinations, all deputy controllers and the IT manager are responsible for conducting the examinations in 2023," he said.

He also said that notices should be issued against the board officers who do not follow the rules and regulations.

On January 23, the BIEK released the results for Part-I (first year) of the examination, revealing a concerning decline in the students’ performance.

The statistics indicated that 80% of candidates failed in Arts (Regular), 72% failed in Arts (Private) and 63% failed in Commerce (Private) groups.

Earlier in the results released, only 36.51% of candidates were successful in Pre-Medical, 34.79% in Pre-Engineering and 38.69% in Computers Science groups.

Most students who passed their matriculation exams with lower marks faced potential challenges in securing admissions to professional universities and colleges, given that admissions are typically based on Inter Part-I marks.