Students shout slogans during a protest outside the Lahore Press Club on Thursday. PHOTO: ABID NAWAZ/EXPRESS
LAHORE: Hundreds of college students from all over Lahore took to the streets on Thursday to protest against the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), accusing it of “unjust marking” in the Intermediate Part 1 examinations.
The widespread protests forced Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take notice of the incident. He has directed the higher education secretary to thoroughly investigate the case and submit a report.
The students staged a demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club, shouting slogans against the BISE and demanded that their papers be rechecked by the board and new results announced.
The protesters were of the view the Lahore board had not properly checked the papers and expressed their reservations on the way the marking was carried out. They demanding that their papers be rechecked rather than simply having their marks recounted.
Noman, one of the protesting students, told The Express Tribune that he had come out to protest against the ‘injustices’ done by the board.
He claimed that junior paper checkers were responsible for the mess, alleging that teachers who checked matriculation papers had been hired by the board to check intermediate papers. He expressed his disbelief at receiving “very low” marks, saying the marks he received made no sense to him. He added that the students deserved to have their papers rechecked and claimed that some students had been awarded more than the total marks of the paper.
Another student Sufian complained that although he had gone to the BISE Lahore office to have his paper rechecked, all the board officials did was recount his marks, alleging the board was playing with the future of the students. The protest was organised through social media with students of various colleges coordinating to gather the protesters. Students from Forman Christian College (FCC), Government College University (GCU), the Punjab Group of Colleges and many other colleges in the city took part in the protest.
Roads around the press club were blocked for several hours because of the protest, causing inconvenience for commuters in the area. Although police were present at the site to prevent any untoward incident, the protesters remained peaceful.
Later, the students staged a protest outside the Punjab Assembly also, causing further difficulties for commuters on The Mall.
Nasim Nawaz, the Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) secretary, also took notice of the protest and reportedly asked the HED Special Secretary to look into the matter. All intermediate boards have reportedly also been asked to file a report on the matter to the HED Secretary.
The BISE Lahore had announced the results for the Intermediate Part-I Annual Examinations, 2016 on October 10, in which only 59.12% candidates were declared successful. A total of 135,069 candidates sat the exams out of which 77,780 passed all papers.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2016.
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