Educational discrimination of its kind

The other day, a private educational institution offered me an opportunity to guide its students on how to solve the question paper in board exams to achieve maximum marks or at least how to avoid deduction of marks because of lack of right and relevant information. The selected students, the institution's high achievers so far, evinced keen interest in the session by listening to every bit of information I shared with them.

Though the students were fully prepared with the content of their textbooks, they had no idea of board exams. Even they didn't know how many pages were there in the answer script. Almost all the time of my presentation was consumed by their queries of an inquisitive nature. A volley of questions hurled by a student put me all at sea: Sir, what is our fault that we are not guided in the board rules? Isn't it an injustice? And why is our state a silent spectator?

One can only wonder how the state can remain indifferent to the private sector of the education system, which caters to the 43.8% students against 56.2% in public institutions out of 54.7 million children enrolled in schools as per the 2021-22 report by the Pakistan Institute of Education. Indifferent in the context that the teachers of private schools are not officially permitted to evaluate the answer scripts of board examinations. Consequently, they are incapacitated to prepare their students as per the directions of board exams and answer the questions as per the weightage of marks allocated for the questions. Only the teachers of government schools are authorised for the job.

You might be thinking that still it is the students of private institutions who win academic laurels. Actually, the whole evaluation process has mutated under their influence. The teachers, to prepare their students for securing maximum marks, make them learn disproportionately lengthy answers. Over time, myths replaced realities. For a question of five marks for writing the summary of a poem, students write the biography of the poet in the opening paragraphs and embellish the summary with irrelevant quotes.

An irony must be noted. The students of private institutions are able to learn and submit lengthy answers, which are in stark contrast to the answers of shorter length submitted by the students of government schools. It changes the standard of marking in favour of students of private schools: the lengthier the answer is, the higher the prospects are for more marks.

The students were much confused about the Urdu paper – lengthier than other papers – because myths are galore about it: the length of answers matters in this paper; there is no consideration for quality of content. The calligraphed headings and answers written in beautiful hand guarantee more marks in the paper of the Urdu language. The signs of anxiety were visible in the students with poor handwriting.

The examination boards should share full directions of script evaluation with the private schools, as it is their right, too. Most of them are registered and affiliated with their respective boards. They pay registration and admission fees for their students. They pay all the taxes as well. Still, they receive no assistance from examination boards. They agree to the board provision of not permitting their teachers to be assigned any examination duty, but they do demand that exam boards must share with them the rules of evaluation of students' scripts.

The examination boards issue directions only for the sub-examiners and head-examiners who are deputed to mark and evaluate the answer scripts, but that too at the time of marking the scripts after the exams. The directions are meant to save students' efforts from being over- or under-credited, but because of wrong timing, the damage can't be helped.

The boards must make the general directions available at the start of the academic year for government and private schools alike. General instructions may include: summary of a poem must be a summary of proper word count, devoid of any quotations and critical analysis; the length and quality of the summary (khulasa) of a prose piece of Urdu; word count for essay writing must be abided by, and lengthy submissions must be discouraged; credit be given to handwriting or not.