Sindh govt okays outsourcing of examinations over complaints of irregularities

The Sindh government has approved the outsourcing of examinations in view of complaints of irregularities in matric and intermediate examinations and results across the province.

In this regard, Muhammad Zubair, section officer of the Department of Boards and Universities, has written a letter to the heads of all matric and Intermediate education boards in Sindh.

The letter says that due to several complaints about maladministration and corrupt practices in conducting the examinations and compiling the results of SSC and HSC, Minister for Universities & Boards Department Ismail Rahoo, in his capacity as controlling authority, has granted approval to outsourcing the examination system from the forthcoming annual examination 2023 by all boards in a phased manner.

The decision has been made in order to automate/digitalise the examination process aimed at ensuring transparency and fairness as well as discouraging malpractices. The letter further states that the chairmen of all boards are therefore requested to prioritise examination components for outsourcing through an open competitive bidding process in terms of the SPPRA Rules, 2010 amended from time to time.

“All boards shall cover the required expenditures from within their budget allocation of CFY 2022-23. Once the exercise has been completed during CFY 2022-23, all boards shall calculate their detailed financial impact so that a regular grant (differential if any) would be worked out/considered,” says the letter.

The important decision came a day after a report carried by The News said that due to ad hocism and non-permanent appointments in important positions in the educational boards of Sindh, the situation has worsened.

Also, due to a lack of serious steps by the Sindh chief minister, the situation has come to a point where 17 MBBS admissions have been cancelled in Liaquat Medical University, Jamshoro, Ziauddin University Examination Board has cancelled 1,200 mark sheets of education boards within Sindh, while the Dawood Engineering University has also cancelled many admissions.

Currently, in the eight educational boards of Sindh, all the controllers, secretaries and audit officers are either junior officers or have come from other departments over the last six years, while five education boards have had no chairman for the last two years.

Vice Chancellor Liaquat Medical University Jamshoro Dr Ikramuddin Ujjan told Daily Jang that MBBS seats are very valuable and there is a one-on-one competition between the candidates, in which fake candidates manage to get admission for 17 seats, which is very sad. He said that we sent the mark sheets to the relevant board for verification, and the board confirmed that 17 were fake, on which we cancelled their admissions, but then some of these candidates brought another confirmation letter from the board that the mark sheet was valid even though we had cancelled their admissions.

Vice Chancellor Dr Ikramuddin Ujjan said that a three-member inquiry team of the Department of Boards and Universities had also visited the university and investigated the matter. Ziauddin University Examination Board Executive Director Dr Nasir Ansar said that our board has zero tolerance on the issue of fake mark sheets because the issue of fake mark sheets has become serious in Sindh. Boards in Sindh firstly do not verify the mark sheets and even if they do, they do it very late.

However, we have introduced a special scheme for humanitarian reasons that fake mark sheet holders will be allowed to appear in class 12th on the condition that they also appear in class 11th next year, he added.

A former vice chancellor of the Dawood Engineering University, Dr Faiz Abbasi, said that dozens of children from Karachi do their intermediate from boards in interior Sindh, while their matriculation is from a Karachi board. When we asked them the reason for doing intermediate outside Karachi, they said that they had gone to stay with a close relative there, so they gave the exam there.

He said that we checked the mark sheets of some students and they turned out to be fake, but one candidate made a lot of noise and brought a new confirmation certificate from the board that the mark sheet was correct. However, when we sent the matter to the Boards and Universities Department, after the final verification, the marks sheet turned out to be fake.