First-year students protest against result, BIEK invites them to check transcripts

Around 200 girls protested at Zamzama on Friday, they say they will continue to do so.

KARACHI: Ever since the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) announced the results of the first-year pre-medical examinations on November 22, text messages started circulating among the students to “stand up for their rights.” But it was only when the pre-engineering results were announced on Friday, that 200 girls from Government Girls Degree College in Gizri gathered at Zamzama to protest what they said was an unfair result.

The protest caused a traffic jam for about an hour till the police arrived and the students dispersed peacefully. One of them, Amina Khan, said that they plan to hold bigger protests after Ashura at Do Talwar, while the boys will try their luck again in front of the BIEK office.

The next day only a few dozen boys gathered in front of the BIEK office in North Nazimabad on Saturday to try and register their protest as well.

This year 45% of students passed the pre-medical exam and 48% passed the pre-engineering exam. This is an improvement on last year from 43% and 41% for the same groups. The students, however, are still unhappy with their marks, which they feel are lower than what their answers should have been graded.

According to the controller of examinations, Imran Khan Chishti, the students who failed are now trying to gain public sympathy. “They are following the students of the Punjab but the situation was very different over there,” he said. “The results issued by the Punjab board had major discrepancies.”

Chishti said that except for the fact that more students cleared the exams this year, there was no anomaly in the result.

Yet, there are cases of students like Anusha Mughal of Degree College Gizri.  She scored 74% in the matric but ended up with a mere 19% in the first-year pre-medical exams. However, this doesn’t faze Chishti. “As the controller of examinations, I take full responsibility for the result,” he said. “This was the first time I permitted parents to verify the marked answer scripts in my office.”

The controller said that hundreds of people came to his office but not one of them complained. “We’re not allowed to add or subtract marks in the answer scripts but if anybody finds a problem in record keeping then we’re ready to correct it any time,” Chishti added.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2011.