Students protest ‘out-of-course’ questions

FIBSE chairman says teachers have been asked to verify claims made by students

ISLAMABAD: Dozens of intermediate students staged a protest outside the offices of the federal board in the capital on Tuesday over what they termed were the inclusion of ‘out of course’ questions in their annual board exams.

The intermediate part-I students from various private and government colleges – but mostly from the Punjab Commerce College and the Islamabad College for Boys in Sector H-9 - who had gathered outside the board’s office complained that in their Physics part-I paper, which was held two days ago, was extremely difficult and that some of the questions included in the examination had not been included in their course.

Some students further claimed they had come across a similar issue in their mathematics paper. The exam which had been held on Friday, the students said that the exam was not according to the syllabus which they had been taught.

Claiming that the issue could grossly affect their future educational and career prospects, the students demanded that either they should be given grace marks in the exam or that they should be allowed to appear in fresh exams in the subject.

“The students can pass the exam but the issue is they all are pre-engineering and pre-medical students and each mark is extremely important for them because they have to compete at medical and engineering universities for admissions,” some protesting students said.

Meanwhile, the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FIBSE) Chairman Ikram Malik said the students had complained that their exam had been quite difficult for average students.

Malik, however, dismissed the complaints by noting that ‘difficulty’ was a relative term.

“Actually, applied and understanding questions seem difficult for students whose concepts are not clear and they rote-learn everything. But whenever the board introduces something creative or new methods, the students object and protest,” he said, adding that their system had become obsolete and parents prefer to enrol their children into the Cambridge system of education.

Despite that, the FIBSE chief said that he had asked the relevant teachers to verify whether the claims made by the students were true or not.

If it is discovered that something out of the course which students were taught had been included in the examination paper, Malik said students would be accommodated across the board.

“We plan to reinvigorate the examination system but we will notify [parents, teachers and students] a year in advance so that the teachers may teach the students according to the new patterns,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2017.