SOPs for answer-sheets re-checking reviewed

LAHORE

Special inquiry committee to resolve the genuine grievances of the candidates of intermediate first year examination in the provincial metropolis held its second meeting in the committee room of Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education Lahore here Monday.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had constituted this special committee under the chairmanship of Additional Chief Secretary Punjab Shamail Ahmad Khawaja and comprising of the Chairman Chief Minister’s Inspection Team Irfan Ali as a member of the committee.

Three co-opted members of the committee Secretary Higher Education Punjab Capt (R) Naseem Nawaz, Special Secretary Higher Education Tahir Yousaf and Punjab Information Technology Board Director General Waqar Naeem Qureshi also participated in the proceedings. The committee reviewed the Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) for marking of answer sheets  scripts, allotment of fictitious role numbers, preparation of answer-key by the experts and random checking of the answer sheets by quality assurance coordinators. The meeting decided new SOPs for re-checking of the answer sheets for those who have submitted applications for this purpose. The meeting was informed that rectification of results regarding objective questions had been done through comparison of answer sheets with the bubble sheets.

The BISE has received 14,560 applications for re-checking of answer sheets during the last two days while 3,200 further applications were received on Monday besides 900 online applications. It was specially noted in the meeting that most of the applicants had complained about generic grievance of low quality marking instead of identifying the specific subject in which, according to them, the candidates were not satisfied with their marks obtained in the first year intermediate examination. 

The next meeting of the inquiry committee will be held Tuesday (today), in which practical measures to ensure complete implementation of the SOPs and strict follow-up of the “answer-key” will be ascertained so that the genuine grievances of the students could be redressed in a judicious manner.