Lahore, Employees of the Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education (BISE) Lahore along with employees of other seven boards of Punjab observed a complete pen-down strike.

The Employees Federation of Educational Boards Punjab (EFEBP) had given the call for the strike as a protest against the Punjab Chief Minister's announcement regarding abolition of examination and registration fees of students of public sector educational institutions. It is pertinent to mention here that the visitors especially students faced troubles due to the strike.

Earlier, the employees had been observing strike only for two hours. The EFEBP had reacted over the decision maintaining that since the educational boards were autonomous bodies and generated revenue at their own, the decision would have an adverse financial impact on these.

The Federation has been demanding of the government to release grants to the educational institutions through the Education Department for paying examination fees, instead of abolishing them. It has also been demanding that if it was not possible, the government should provide grants to the boards directly. Meanwhile, the BISE Lahore has announced schedule for submission of forms for Matriculation Annual Examination 2010 starting from 13 March 2010.

The board has set January 9, 2010 as last date for submission of forms by regular students while for private students, the last date with single fee is December 12, 2009. The last date with double fee both for private and regular students is January 23, 2010 while last date with triple fee is February 13 2010.