Examining the system: Still in search of proper results
Intermediate students in Sialkot, Lahore and other cities continue to protest outside Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) offices regarding the delay in posting of results.
According to protesters in Lahore, Part 1 results for the intermediate examination have yet to be announced due to glitches in the BISE website.
The protestors shouted slogans against the BISE administration for withholding their results and demanded that the results be declared immediately. BISE Public Relations Officer Qaiser Virk told The Express Tribune that exam results of nearly 1,500 students were still categorised as RL (result late) on the website. BISE secretary Mushtaq Tahir has been suspended with regards to the delay in issuing the result. “The situation is improving and we are issuing result cards to the students as quickly as we can,” he maintained.
Dr Majid Naeem, who designed the computer software, told reporters that it wasn’t the fault of the system if the results were withheld. “It isn’t the computer’s fault. If you write an A grade then the computer will not replace it with a B. The errors have been made by data entry officials,” he said, adding that the mistakes were either on the part of teachers or the board officials. “They didn’t mention the right number on the first page of the mark sheet. The software just calculates the number from the spreadsheet. If they are any mistakes they are on the part of administrative officials not the computers or the computer program,” he maintained.
Dr Naeem claimed that the software had caught errors in 800,000 papers in the Matriculation result, where incorrect calculations were documented.
Muhammad Tayyb, a software engineer working for a private firm, said that software worked according to the commands fed into it. “The computer software is pretty basic and all errors pertain to the people feeding in the information incorrectly,” he said.
Thousands of the students and teachers in Sialkot staged a protest demonstration near the Government Postgraduate College for Women on Friday to protest the delay.
According to the protesters, they were rallying against mismanagement on part of the administration and said that they would continue their protests until they received their exam results. “The BISE delay in issuing result sheets is compromising the future of thousands of students. They need to apply for colleges and the deadlines are lapsing,” said a teacher Rehmat Bilal Haroom.
Students in Gujranwala also protested against errors in the results of Intermediate Part I and II by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) in Gujranwala. “We thought that having a computerised system would make our lives easier but it has been a disaster. My cousin previously scored one of the highest grades but was given a third division. He had to visit the BISE office six times before they checked his records and corrected the error,” said protester Faiz Alam Shah.
Students and teachers in Sialkot and Gujranwala boycotted classes as a mark of protest against BISE officials and demanded a strict probe against the officials responsible. “Thousands of students are still waiting and who knows, even now we’re not sure the result will be correct. Many of us may have to come back and protest new errors,” said Mahnoor Khan.
The students called for the immediate removal of all errors in exam marking by the BISE officials. “We refuse to pay additional fees for the correct results. If anything, BISE should be paying us for the inconvenience rather than asking for a fee to have our papers rechecked,” she said.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 22nd, 2011.
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