HSSC Part-II: Faulty results: Students take to roads

BISE head promises recheck, students burn tyres outside board office.

RAWALPINDI:

Students of different colleges on Tuesday protested outside the office of Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Rawalpindi against the discrepancies in the annual result of higher secondary school certificate (HSSC-II).  

Over 150 students gathered outside the BISE office on the Sixth Road and chanted slogans against the Punjab chief minister and the administration of the examination body for failing them in the HSSC-II results announced on October 17, 2011.

A good number of students from Asghar Mall Degree College for Boys and Government Degree College for Boys Sixth Road and some students from private colleges gathered at Liaqat Bagh at about 10:30 am and later reached the Rawalpindi Press Club. Later, the students carrying sticks conducted a rally on the Benazir Bhutto Road. Their march impeded the flow of the traffic on the busy road but the protesting students remained peaceful. Soon police officials escorted them to the board’s office.

The students burnt tyres outside the board’s office and asked the authorities to cancel the HSSC-II results. They said that most of the errors committed in the results were the offshoots of the online system for registration and admission process.

Later on, BISE Chairman Dr Muhammad Qasim informed the students that they had already decided to recheck the papers and prepare new results within 45 days.

Dr Qasim said majority of the students had been expelled from their colleges after they were declared unsuccessful by the board and he had written a letter to the education institutions not to oust the failed students until the results were reviewed.

The chairman added that the HSSC-II results announced by BISE Rawalpindi will not be cancelled as the education minister had announced the cancellation of results for four boards only.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2011.