Age limit for exams: Pindi education board asked to explain stance

Petitioner challenges decision to adopt online registration system.

RAWALPINDI:

A court on Monday directed the city’s Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) to submit a written response to a petition challenging its decisions concerning  the candidates of class nine exams.

All Pakistan Private Schools’ Association moved the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench after Punjab’s higher education department decided to resort to an online registration system and fix the minimum age limit for candidates appearing for class nine exams.

Justice Chaudhry Muhammad Younis of the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench conducted the hearing of the case filed by the association’s president Abrar Ahmed Khan. The petitioner requested the court to direct the authorities to revert to the manual registration system, eliminate the condition of a minimum age for candidates registering for class nine exams in 2013, which has been fixed at 13, and extend the deadline for registration.

BISE Rawalpindi set July 3 as the last date through a notification issued on June 6, when private and public schools were closed for summer vacations, contended the petitioner’s lawyer Hafiz Waqar Ahmed.

Many students who want to sit for the examination are below the minimum age limit. Ahmed cited the example of Tooba Bibi, who passed eighth grade when she was 10.

She would have to wait for three years to sit for her exams if the new rule is enforced, he argued.

Punjab higher education secretary, Punjab Boards Committee of Chairmen, BISE Rawalpindi chairman, secretary and controller have been named as respondents.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2012.