Intermediate boards: A’ Level students still need equivalence certificate

Cambridge International Examinations should print raw marks.

KARACHI: Students who did their Cambridge O’ and A’ Levels and want to apply to local universities will still have to convert their grades into intermediate-board friendly marks, decided the local education boards on Wednesday.

This sets A’ Level students at a considerable disadvantage. The Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) changed its grading system two years ago from percentiles to percentages. Now, if a student scores 95 per cent and above, they get an A*. But the intermediate boards do not recognise this as the intermediate examiners don’t grant more than 90 marks.

The local boards decided that they would not change their system for the CIE. These announcements were made by the Inter-Board Committee of Chairmen’s Prof. Anwar Ahmedzai after a two-day meeting. The committee did not agree to using the Percentage Uniform Marks (PUM) awarded by the CIE to help calculate equivalence.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Ahmedzai said the forum reiterated that the CIE should print actual raw marks on the certificates instead of standardised PUMs. Chairmen of all examination boards were deliberating on the revised A’ Level equivalence formula and whether students admitted to medical universities after passing A’ Level science and mathematics should be issued an equivalence certificate or not.

The forum noted that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council or any allied medical college or university shall not determine the equivalence criteria for the intermediate level in the presence of the committee.

Ahmedzai said the forum agreed to consider awarding scouts 10 extra marks. The committee would write the Pakistan Scouts Association to provide details of the syllabus and pattern. The committee would also publish its decisions taken during the last 10 years.

It was agreed that all boards would write their affiliated institutions to celebrate Library Day from next year and that the matriculation and intermediate courses of study could be completed in four and not three years.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2011.