New rule to submit practical journals to board scrapped

BSEK issued the directive ahead of this year’s practical exams, scheduled from March 11.

KARACHI: Surrendering to the pressures from teachers and students of Matric system schools, the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) officials on Tuesday withdrew a notification issued a day earlier that had made it mandatory on schools to submit practical journals to the board.

The notification has created a controversy, and attracted resentment from schools associations and students, who had termed the board decision as an infringement on the autonomy of educational institutions.

Earlier on, BSEK controller of examinations, Noman Ahsan, had told The Express Tribune that the board had issued a notification on Monday to all schools that are affiliated with it, and directed them to submit the journals ahead of this year’s practical exams, which are scheduled to begin from March 11.

Currently, schools keep physics, chemistry and biology journals of their students. Meanwhile, practical exams count for 15 points out of a total of 100 for each of the three science subjects. Three of those points are awarded on practical journals. Two examiners, one from the school that conducts the practical exam, and the other from the board, supervise practical examinations. The school’s examiner (commonly referred to as the internal examiner) awards points on the journal, while the board examiner (known as external examiner) awards points on the student’s performance on the practical exam. Ahsan said on Tuesday that external examiners would themselves check the practical journals of candidates, and cut them so as to make it impossible for anyone else to use it in the future.



He, however, believed that the earlier decision would have encouraged schools to give more importance to practical exams. “A number of schools do not even ask their students to prepare practical journals.” He added that many students also acquire journals that had been prepared by older students, or purchase them through one of many publishers that produce study-aid materials.

A short survey of the widely popular Urdu Bazaar showed on Monday that completed practical journals were available for anywhere between Rs150 to Rs200. Staff at laboratories at many schools are also known to give prepared journals to students for minor charges.

Reactions

A student at the Shah Latif Boys Secondary School had earlier told The Express Tribune that many students considered practical exams as a mere waste of time, particularly because their content was woefully outdated. “When [our] lab staff can provide us prepared journals for a few hundred rupees, why would we bother to waste time in preparing them on our own?”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2013.