Matric exam: Requirement for online submission challenged

Web applications a great ‘inconvenience’.

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday admitted for regular hearing an application challenging the requirement that students submit admission forms online to sit the matriculation exams.

Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique attached this application to his already pending main petition challenging the compulsory production of Form B of the National Database and Registration Authority with the admission form for the ninth and tenth class exams in Punjab.

The lawyer submitted that boards of intermediate and secondary education required the students to file their applications online, which was a great inconvenience. He presented in the court several newspaper reports about the difficulties faced by the students in submitting online admission forms.

He asked the court to make the news reports part of the case record and to seek an explanation from the board authorities on the matter. Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed allowed the application and fixed its hearing for the first week of March along with the main case. In the main petition, parents complain that the payment required for Form B violated the government policy of providing education for free. They also argue that the right time to seek Form B is after students get admission to an institution, not before they even take their exams.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2011.