Flawed SSC-I result: Sans total recheck, teachers to boycott matric exams

Punjab Teachers Union protests punishment for faulty results, decide to take matter to courts.

RAWALPINDI:

The union for teaching staff at government-run schools in the district has announced that they will boycott the upcoming secondary school certificate (SSC) exams unless all papers from the recent SSC part one exams are rechecked.

Terming the secondary school examination (SSE) part one results announced by the Rawalpindi Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (RBISE)‘bogus’, government teachers decided to boycott the upcoming matriculation examination.

In a meeting held here on Saturday, the Rawalpindi chapter of Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) protested against the punishment being awarded to them by the education department over the inaccurate results for the SSC part one. The teachers resolved to challenge the education department’s decision in court, while also deciding to boycott the upcoming matriculation examination, scheduled to begin from March 3.

“If the Rawalpindi Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (RBISE) does not recheck the entire grade 9 result, government teachers will not perform their exam duties,” said PTU General Secretary Imtiaz Abbasi.

Abbasi explained that teachers think RBISE deliberately failed hundreds of brilliant students. “We are not responsible for churning out faulty results, in fact, RBISE is entirely to blame. About 9,000 students applied to RBISE for rechecking, most of who were declared passed afterwards,” he said.

“If the RBISE prepared a faulty result, why should teachers be punished? Before any action is taken against government teachers, the entire result should be re-evaluated,” said Sajid Masood, a school teacher.

“The board deliberately failed hundreds of brilliant students just to mint money off of rechecking,” said Government Higher Secondary Parial School Principal Chaudhry Imtiaz. He alleged that a number of brilliant students from his school were also deliberately failed. “Of the 31 students from our school, four passed after rechecking, while the papers of remaining students are still being rechecked,” said Imtiaz.

It is relevant to note here that the education department has decided to stop increments in the salaries of around 200 teachers for generating flawed results.

Newly-appointed RBISE Chairman Ghulam Muhammad claimed that the number of cases in which students were initially failed and passed after rechecking did not amount to hundreds, “but only a few dozen”. He explained that the investigations so far have revealed one teacher associated with RIBSE failed dozens of passing students while compiling the results.

“We have taken disciplinary action against him and further investigation is underway,” said Muhammad.

Moreover, to ensure transparency, an unusual new system has been introduced. “In order to break the nexus of corrupt elements, we have introduced an oath system.” Under the new development, RBISE staff was made to take an oath to put a halt to corruption and play a positive role in the upcoming matriculation examination. The invigilators set to perform duties in the same exam also swore an oath for upholding fair practices.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2014.