20-year age limit: SHC orders education board to issue admit cards

3,000 students affected by policy change.

KARACHI: The Board of Secondary Education, Karachi has been ordered by a court to allow 3,000 students to sit the Matric exams as regular candidates. The board had changed its policy recently, saying that students who were older than 20 years of age had to appear as external candidates.

The matter landed in the Sindh High Court where private schools argued that if the board had wanted to change its policy, it should have done it before the students went through the entire process of registering as regular candidates. They had paid the fee, prepared for the exams as regular candidates and invested their precious time.

The board’s legal counsel, Abrar Hasan, defended the BSEK’s new policy, saying that it was meant to enforce discipline. The board had given the students a choice between appearing as external or private candidates.

Justice Maqbool Baqar and Justice Shafi Siddiqui disposed off the five identical petitions on Tuesday and told the board to issue the exam admit cards by April 3 to all 3,000 plus students.

On March 16, the SHC had told the board not to harass the students any further and allow them to appear in the practical and theory exams which were already underway.