Missed Matric exams: BSEK to revoke affiliation of schools running ‘mafia’

Secretary explains the dynamics and strategies adopted by the mafia.

KARACHI:

The Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) has decided to revoke the affiliation of the schools that had put the career of its students on stake by failing to submit their secondary school certificate exam forms, The Express Tribune has learnt on Friday.

The BSEK, in the first stage, will serve show-cause notices to all such schools in order to fulfil the legal formalities, following which the schools' registration will be cancelled. Later, it will inform the Sindh government's private school directorate as well to take its own decision.

Earlier on Thursday, The Express Tribune had published the names of the schools, including City Pearl Grammar School, Al Hamd Public School, Pak Grammar High School, Ayesha Boys and Girls High School and Aziz Government Boys Secondary School, involved in jeopardising one academic year of around 300 students.

Since the beginning of the Matriculation exams on April 2, the affected students staged protests at their respective institutions as well as at the education board's office, requesting the officials to consider their future and allow them to take the exams.

Giving consideration to the students' plight, BSEK chairperson Fasihuddin Khan had finally come up with the decision on Friday that all genuine students, who had already submitted their enrolment forms to the education board, will have special permission to take this years' supplementary exams. "The education board, after proper scrutiny, will accept the exam forms of all such students who have become the victim of their schools' criminal negligence," said Khan.

However, it emerged on Friday that the BSEK officials had been receiving school administrations' calls from every nook and corner of the city, requesting to accommodate their students on one hand while warning to stage protests on the other.

While the education boards examination controller, Noman Ahsan, had already refused to accommodate the students at the eleventh hour, other BESK officials also appeared adamant to deal with the "intimidation tactics" of private schools.

The BSEK secretary, Hoor Mazhar, confirmed the necessary preliminaries in this context when she was approached by The Express Tribune. "The disciplinary action has become necessary to discourage the 'educational mafia' that has been playing with the children's future for many years now," she said. "We are likely to receive around 8,000 to 10,000 exam forms if we bow down to the pressure of these so-called schools."

Mazhar explained the 'educational mafia' comprises a network of private schools that hardly receive any students throughout the year.

At the onset of the exam season every year, these schools passively advertise admission opportunities in class nine for all such students who fail to get admission at other schools, said Mazhar. "By that time, the BSEK deadline for registration has already lapsed so the schools involved in this particular business also wait for the submission deadline to lapse."

Just a few days before the exams, the schools begin pressurising the BSEK officials with protests by the students and their parents to accept their students' forms. "In all that hue and cry in the midst of hectic exams arrangements, the officials hardly get time to verify the students' eligibility to take the exams," said Mazhar.

She recalled that the issued emerged for the first time in 2010 when the Sindh governor had to intervene with directives to defer the scheduled exams for one day, so that all the left out students could be accommodated. "When we did scrutinise after the exams, a number of schools involved were not even affiliated with the education board while a few did not even exist on ground," said Mazhar.

The BSEK will only allow those left out students to take the supplementary exams who had their registrations completed with the education board, she added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 5^th, 2014.