All eight Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISEs) of Punjab have unanimously decided not to announce the names of position holders of the upcoming annual exams and hold result announcement ceremonies due to Covid-19, The Express Tribune has learnt.
According to sources, the Punjab inter-board committee decided not to announce names of position holders to stop the domination of private schools that use the announcements to attract admissions.
The committee of the chairpersons of the boards decided to mention marks and grades on the result cards and advised all the boards not to declare the top positions.
In accordance with instructions of Punjab Higher Education Department, ceremonies to announce the top positions will not be organised by any board.
Following instructions of the federal government, the BISEs of Punjab had already decided to pass all candidates. The checking of answer sheets and compilation of results of intermediate and matriculation candidates was under way, including the ranking, before the decision against announcing names of those obtaining the highest marks.
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The sources said the tradition of declaring the names of top candidates might be discontinued for the future years as the higher education department is planning to introduce a system of grading for intermediate and matriculation students.
"This year no position holders will announced and no result ceremony will be held at BISE Lahore and all boards are following this instruction," confirmed Lahore BISE spokesman Qaiser Virk.
According to a senior official of the department, a private sector mafia ran their business using the names of position holders to attract thousands of students for admissions. He said Punjab government gave millions of rupees to the position holders as prize but they preferred to get admission to private schools.
The official said it appeared that the government had decided to spend the money to strengthen public sector schools.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 29th, 2021.
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