K-P unifies middle school exam policy for public, private sectors

Education dept spokesman says although private schools were initially reluctant, they are now all on same page

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Elementary and Secondary Education Department (ESED) has approved an assessment and examination policy for grades five and eight for the following academic year 2017-18.

The department issued a notification in which all students in grades five and eight at public and private educational institutions in K-P have been directed to appear in exams which will be conducted by the intermediate board and the board of secondary education. The project was initially approved by the provincial government in 2014 as a pilot project in Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera and Charsadda, before being spread province-wide.

In the initial phase, students were expected to take four exams – English, Urdu, mathematics, and science. In 2015, the K-P government extended the assessment policy to other parts of the province while also increasing the number of subjects from four to six, adding social studies and Islamiat to the curriculum.

In 2016, the government implemented the assessment policy in public and private schools, but some private institutes refused to take part in the examination scheme, while in other cases, children were not allowed to sit the exams.



K-P ESED Media Adviser Naji Ullah Khattak told The Express Tribune that due to the success of the policy and previous assessments, the department has made it compulsory for all educational institutes. Khattak said that although private institutions were initially reluctant, now they are on the same page and will accordingly be preparing their students for the upcoming 2017-18 examinations.