Decision on composite board exam draws flak

PESHAWAR: The provincial government’s decision to reintroduce composite examination for the Secondary School Certificate at grade-10 and board examination for grade-8 has invited widespread criticism from parents and teachers of both the private and public sector schools.

“This government never tires of making new experiments in the name of promoting the quality of education. But this one is strange. It would aggravate the situation instead of bringing any improvement,” said a senior academician while talking to The News.

The parents of students studying in private schools got an appeal to those who matter published in different newspapers, asking them to intervene in the matter and review the decision.

According to the parents, the decision was made in so much haste that it would affect the performance of students as well as schools.

They were of the opinion that the schools were informed of the decision just before the beginning of three-month summer vacations. Thus the students would get only six months to understand the courses and make preparations for the examination, which would not be possible for them in such a short span, they said.

The parents were also opposed to the composite examination at grade-10 and abolishment of the segregated exam at grade-9.

They said the segregated system of examination had been in vogue across the country since 2009 and no other province had thought about reintroducing the old and outdated system.

They added that the reintroduction of the system here would put extra burden on the students.

This correspondent spoke to a number of academicians and officials and all of them opposed the new system with one voice.

“I can’t understand where such decisions come from. The Elementary and Secondary Education Department claims that high-level deliberations had been done before the decision. But I don’t think anyone having know-how of education system would support such silly idea to reintroduce the system which had been experimented upon decades ago,” said an academician.

The provincial government, besides reintroducing the two old systems, has also decided to conduct random evaluation at grade-2 and 3 levels, which is another silliest idea, according to another academician.

The private schools already have a strict system of examination. Therefore, there is no need to conduct random evaluation there. As far as the government schools are concerned, the government has already developed clusters of schools headed by a nearby high or higher secondary school and the examination is conducted by a third party of the whole cluster of schools. Therefore, the new practice would ruin this system that has started bearing fruit, he argued.

The government officials, on the other hand, are of the opinion that they have taken the decision for improving the standard of education.

A senior officer in the Elementary and Secondary Education Department told The News that the decision was taken after thorough deliberations to improve the quality of education.

He said that whenever they hold schools or teachers responsible for poor results at secondary school level, an excuse is presented to them that the students’ performance at middle level is not good and weak students are promoted to high classes, which is why they could not produce ideal results. This forced the provincial government to reintroduce board examination system at the grade-8 level, he said.

He added that in order to give some relief to the students and save them from three consecutive board examinations, the board exam at 9th level was abolished and the system of composite examination was reintroduced.

This, according to senior academicians, was a lame excuse. By reintroducing the composite examination system, more burdens would be put upon the student instead of giving them any relief. Also, the grade-8 examination is a useless practice. Grade-8 has no value in one’s academic career. It would rather affect their performance at the SSC level, which is the most important examination in the academic career of students.

Therefore, he suggested that the government should review the decision. It should have detailed deliberation with all the stakeholders before going ahead with the experiment, which has proved failed years ago, he stressed.