Pen-down strike of boards’ employees: Protest delaying intermediate exam results announcement

PESHAWAR: The pen-down strike by the employees of different boards of secondary and intermediate education continued for the 10th consecutive day on Thursday against the provincial government’s plan to establish a single board, causing delay in announcement of the intermediate results and creating serious problems for the students who recently passed secondary school certificate examination.

The employees were adamant that they would not call off the strike until the provincial government withdrew its notification regarding the establishment of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education. The committee formed by the provincial government for establishment of the single board through a recent notification declared that the next examination of secondary and higher secondary school certificates would be conducted by the single board.

The notification caused serious concern among the employees of the eight educational boards and they launched a pen-down strike. President of the board employees coordination Tariq Safi said that they wanted the government to withdraw the notification.

“The day the government withdraws the notification, we will call off our strike,” Tariq Safi told The News. The government on the other hand has turned a deaf ear to the protesting employees and no step could be taken to convince them to call off their strike.

Meanwhile, the employees declared to come out of the boards and stage protest demonstrations on the streets to press the government to listen to them.

They will launch a protest rally today (Thursday) from Deans Plaza in Peshawar Cantt and they will hold a protest demonstration outside Peshawar Press Club.

All Pakistan Clerks Association has also announced support to the protesting employees and they too would participate in the protest procession today.

The prolonged protests have been leaving adverse effects on the students. The affairs of the boards have come to a complete standstill. The students who recently passed their matriculation examination require various documents for admission in colleges. Some want to get their results rechecked, others face other issues and they are unable to get their problems resolved due to the strike.

Owing to the strike, a number of students may also miss admission in colleges. Also, the strike has delayed the declaration of the intermediate results, causing unrest among students and their parents.

When reached by telephone to seek information about intermediate results, a deputy controller examination of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Peshawar responded: “Employees are on pen-down strike dear.”

According to some officials concerning the development, the committee formed by the government consisted of non-technical persons. Some of the members of the committee had vested interests with the unification of the boards, the officials say.

One senior official in the education department said that the development would benefit a few individuals but it would affect hundreds of thousands of students in the province and the thousands of employees of the eight educational boards.

Another official said that throughout the world systems were being decentralized. But here the government has taken a strange decision to go towards centralization, he said.

He said that it was beyond the capacity of one board to cater to the needs of such a huge number of students from different regions of the province. He said that the situation of the federal board was totally different from the boards in the province.

All the centres of the federal boards were located in cantonment areas of the big cities and there was great difference between the situation in the posh areas and the peripheries like Chitral, Dera Ismail Khan and areas of Hazara division and other parts of the province, he said. The process of decentralisation of the boards in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had started in 1990 and until 2006 eight educational boards were established. Now this government wanted to do away with the process, which was not acceptable to the employees.

The authorities in the education department and government functionaries claim that the existing boards would remain the same. But the notification stated that the exams would be conducted by a single board. If they do not conduct examinations, what would be the need of the boards, said one protesting employee.

“The situation is not very simple. It requires serious attention from those at the helm of affairs,” he said.