Process to appoint BIEK, Hyderabad board’s chairmen comes to a halt

After the appointment of chairmen to six educational boards of Sindh, the process of appointing chairmen to the province’s two top educational boards, Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) and Hyderabad board, has come to a halt.

Despite the instructions of the Sindh chief secretary, chairmen are not being appointed to both the boards, which are being run on the basis of ad hocism.

The additional charge of the post of chairman of the BIEK is with Ghulam Hussain Sahu, chairman of Karachi matric board, while the additional charge of the post of the chairman of the Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education Hyderabad is with Sohail Anwar Baloch, additional secretary, Boards and Universities Department.

When the chairmen appointed by the search committee to these two boards declined to take up the post, the Boards and Universities Department sent the names of additional candidates with low marks to Chief Secretary Asif Haider Shah on behalf of the search committee, but the chief secretary did not agree to the appointment of candidates with low marks as chairmen to the two best and sensitive boards of the province and directed posts be re-advertised.

The CS was of the view that candidates who scored higher marks in the remaining boards of Sindh have already been appointed as chairmen, so instead of appointing additional candidates who scored lower marks in the two higher boards of Sindh, a new advertisement should be given so that the best candidates can be appointed on merit. However, despite the passage of two months, no advertisement is being given, due to which on the one hand, the orders of the CS to advertise for the posts are being openly violated, and on the other hand, not only are both the boards suffering from ad hocism, but the routine affairs of the boards are also being affected, which may also have an impact on the results of intermediate and matric exams.

For the last two years, there have been complaints about a decrease in the ratio of results in the BIEK, on which the chief minister had formed a committee headed by Dr Sarosh Lodi, on whose recommendations additional marks were given to Karachi candidates in physics, chemistry and mathematics, while in Hyderabad, former chairman Dr Memon and Examinations Director Masroorzai were held responsible for the change in the results and action was directed.