2700 matric students future at risk

Karachi, The future of more than 2,700 students of matriculation is still on the stake, as the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) has yet to decide whether these students would be allowed to be appeared in the upcoming examinations or not.

The BSEK administration is waiting for the court verdict about the issue, which is expected to come in the next hearing on March 26.

Various schools’ administrators and hundreds of students have already staged a protest demonstration outside the building of the board against non-issuance of admits cards before the SSC Examinations 2012.

As many as 500 students out of total 2,700 have changed their faculty and nature of enrolment, following the decision of BSEK that students, who are over 20 years of age, now will not be allowed to take part in the examinations as regular candidates.

Talking to TheNation, BSEK secretary Hoor Mazhar said, “We are just waiting for the court verdict on March 26. The board would follow the court’s decision about issuance of the admit cards to the said candidates.”

She maintained that if the court’s verdict went in the students favour, the board would definitely allowed these students to be appeared in the examination and practical examinations will also be taken of these students. To a query, she said that we had notified all schools’ administrations about the decision of the BSEK board of governors. “The decision was taken in February 2011. But these schools did not take notice of this decision. We are just waiting for the court verdict, the board is ready to issue admit cards to these students.”

Peak Private Schools Association President Haider Ali told TheNation that the board was using delay tactics despite the issue of non-issuance of admits cards before the SSC Examinations 2012 is related to the future of the hundreds of students. “We gave the board a deadline of March 27 for issuance of admit cards to the candidates, otherwise students and schools will stage a protest outside the board building against the BSEK’s apathetic behaviour. The students and their parents have got frustrated just because of the board’s decision.”

He said that they had already appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Chief Justice of Sindh High Court, Sindh governor, Sindh chief minister, Sindh education minister to allow these students to be appeared in the said examination to save the future of the students.