Transparency, fair conduct of exams

LAHORE: Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education (BISE) Lahore has asked the Daanish Schools Authority to get its schools registered with examination boards of their respective division for Matriculation and Intermediate examinations in order to maintain transparency and fair conduct of the exams, it is learnt.

Presently, under a special arrangement, BISE Lahore conducts Matric and Intermediate Exams of all the 14 campuses of Daanish Schools situated in Dera Ghazi Khan, Rahim Yar Khan, Fazilpur (District Rajanpur), Hasilpur (District Bahawalpur), Chishtian (District Bahawalnagar), Attock and Mianwali.

It is pertinent to mention here that Daanish School was a brainchild of the former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif to empower extremely underprivileged families by providing high quality education to their children. On his special instructions, all campuses of Daanish Schools were registered with the BISE Lahore for the examinations. There are nine examination boards, one each in a divisional headquarters, across Punjab. However, all the Daanish School students appear in Matric and Inter exams conducted by the Lahore Board.

Since Shahbaz Sharif is no more in power in the province, it seems the BISE Lahore administration has now gathered courage to unburden itself from the task which involves a number of risk factors in the smooth and fair conduct of the exams primarily because of the distance between Lahore and these districts. It is also pertinent mention here that Matric and Inter exams are conducted simultaneously on a uniform basis by all the nine BISEs across the province.

The BISE Lahore has to make special arrangements for conducting exams of Daanish School students which includes transportation of question papers, answer books and human resource, including examination staff from the provincial metropolis to these districts.

A senior official of BISE Lahore said multiple risk factors were involved in the entire exercise as the board had to follow certain SOPs to ensure smooth and fair conduct of the exams. He said there had been instances in the past which demand a proper review of the situation in order to maintain transparency in the conduct of exams. He quoted an example of replacing entire team of examination staff last year in Dera Ghazi Khan and deploying staff to monitor the conduct of exam through CCTV cameras.

When contacted, BISE Lahore Chairman Prof Ch Muhammad Ismail said the board had suggested the Daanish Schools Authority to register its schools with examination boards of their respective division for betterment of the exam system. “This is just a suggestion; otherwise, we are ready to continue the exercise,” he added.

Prof Ch Muhammad Ismail further said the BISEs were following a centralised mechanism so there won’t be any problem for the students of Daanish Schools. He said the boards were also following inter-board marking under which papers of one board were marked by the other board and vice versa.