Lyari students who missed exams must be accomodated: SHC

Students had gone to court against principal for putting their future in jeopardy.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has repeated its directions to the secretary of the education and literacy department to see whether 149 students of a private school, Bright Star School, in Chakiwara, Lyari - who couldn’t appear for their examinations due to enrollment problems - could be accommodated in supplementary examinations.

The students, including 81 girls, took a number of individuals, including the school’s principal, the education secretary and the head of Board of Secondary Education, Karachi (BSEK), to court earlier this month for not issuing the admit cards that would allow them to appear for the examinations. These students, who were enrolled in grade nine and 10, missed the annual examinations that began on April 8.

The principal claimed that a clerk, Abdul Karim, who was sent to the BSEK office to submit the forms, ran away with fees worth Rs142,000.

“The principal had registered an FIR against the clerk in Chakiwara police station but they haven’t been able to trace him as yet,” said the petitioner. The students pleaded the court take action against the school’s management.

SHC had directed the education secretary and the chairperson of BSEK to treat this as a special case and to ensure that the affected students were able to appear for the upcoming supplementary examinations at a hearing on April 13.

However, the secretary was absent when the case was discussed. They issued him a notice again on April 30 to resolve the matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2013.