Govt to probe loopholes in exam duty draw in Peshawar board

PESHAWAR: Serious loopholes have been identified in the draw for the duties of examination staff of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Peshawar. The KP government has taken notice of the issue and decided to investigate it.

In the meeting chaired by the provincial education minister, the participants raised many queries about the draw system. Sources said parents have raised strong objections to the appointment of blue-eyed staff in a few private schools in the board examination.

Secretary of the Elementary and Secondary Education Department Masood Ahmed told The News that during the board’s briefing, it was clear to the officers that the staff appointment for the examination process should be transparent and reliable. The government has zero tolerance for malpractice in the examination system. He said that all the eight boards of the province are independent but the matter has been taken over and there will be an inquiry to make the examination system transparent.

The credible sources of the Elementary and Secondary Education Department told this correspondent that a meeting was held to discuss the upcoming draw for the examination duties. During the meeting, the members raised serious issues regarding the software used for the draw.

The committee members said the draw software is prepared in-house by the BISEs and there are chances that they may have fixed some staff for some specific centers in the backend database of the software.

They said the evidence/path of the draw result file is not known and there are chances that other file previously saved in the system is printed in place of the draw file

One of the members said the number of supervisory staff is taken less for some centers from the actual required supervisory staff which are then appointed manually. “To keep, some of the centers vacant, the SMS is not sent to the draw staff for which their mobile numbers are changed which pave the way for the manual appointment in these centers”, they said.

Resultantly, there is a huge difference between the staff performing exam duties and those of draw results. When contacted the Chairman of the Peshawar Board Nasrullah Khan said that the committee of 8 members was notified and the convener of the committee was Abdul Akram, Additional Secretary E&SE while the Director HEMIS cell Salahuddin was also a member.

He said the draw was supervised and conducted by Director HEMIS cell Salahuddin and Deputy Director IT Ijaz. The chairman said they processed four draws and both officials chose the 4th draw. They took a print and signed each page which is clear evidence of transparency. The above observations are simply a perception of those who believe in these procedures. “Finally if I as a head of the institution do not interfere in the process, then who else will be able to do so”, he said.