Crying foul: Students protest ‘discrepancies’ in Matric results

Protesters claimed they had been marked absent even though they had appeared for the exams

KARACHI: Over 250 students, who failed or were marked absent in their matriculation examinations, protested outside the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) office on Friday morning, a day after the board announced the results for the year, 2015.

To facilitate the thousands of students who do not have internet facilities at home, the Matric board had set up a desk where they could check their results. The students, whose results were not available on the BSEK's website, also showed up at the board office on Friday morning. The situation took a turn for the worse when the latter found they had been marked absent in one of the subjects or had failed their exams.

Read: High achievers: Female candidates clinch all the top positions in matric exams

"My daughter secured 96 per cent in her ninth exams and this year, they are saying she was absent," said the mother of a candidate, Ramsha, who studies in Al-Hamra Academy. "This is all because of the BSEK's lethargy. They have ruined a whole year of my daughter's life" she said.

For her part, the BSEK secretary, Hoor Mazhar, told The Express Tribune that mistakes could occur in the record-keeping and there could be a typographical error in the case of two per cent of the students. The board does accept this as human error on its part. "But the students protesting outside our office are against the transparent results and are mostly the ones who have failed and are trying to manipulate their parents by claiming it is the board's fault," she explained.

Read: Baloch female students boycott examinations over 'frisking' by male invigilators

Mazhar also questioned the students who thought their result were incorrect or they were marked absent in any subject to write an application and submit to the relevant department. "The typographical error will be corrected through scrutiny which will be announced once the mark sheets have been hand over to students," she told The Express Tribune.  "All the genuine issues of the students will be entertained and their mark sheets will be corrected after scrutiny."

The students and their worried parents, however, refused to be placated. They pelted stones at the board's staff and shouted slogans against the administration. Subsequently, the police was called in, who managed to bring the situation under control in an hour. Law enforcers will be deployed outside the board office during office hours as a larger protest is expected on Monday. "I will come back with more friends on Monday to protest the results as due to Friday prayers, many didn't show up today," said another student of Al-Hamra Academy.

Showing all his admit cards, enrolment cards and SSC part-1 mark sheet, a student of NADRA public school, Waseeq appeared to be distraught by the results. "I have appeared for all the papers and when the results were announced, I was marked absent in two of them," she said unhappily, "How is it possible that I appeared in the paper and the board doesn't have the record."

This year, over 4,500 students were absent in at least one of their paper, said Mazhar. In most of these cases, the students change their class or centre which is why their attendance cannot be recorded in the assigned examination center. If a student reaches the examination centre late or the classroom has limited capacity, they are asked to sit in another room which is why the attendance will be not marked. "For all such students, a special desk has been set up inside the board office," Mazhar told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2015.