A matter of policy: Post-dated picture mandatory to reissue Matric certificate

Board requires 1999-2001 Matric students to furnish pictures of that time for a duplicate certificate.

KARACHI: If your secondary school certificate dates back anywhere between 1999 and 2001, make sure you do not lose it.

For if you ask for a duplicate certificate, the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi (BSEK), will likely demand you furnish a 2x2 passport-sized photograph from the time when you were, in all probability, planning for your sweet 16.

Even if you get across this hurdle, the BSEK officials will insist that the photograph be attested by the principal of the school where you completed your Matriculation.



Unlike his peers, 31-year-old Hussain Yasir, who graduated in the year 1999, from Shaheen Public School, considers himself blessed as he was able to get his hands on one such photograph.

Yasir had misplaced the certificate, but had been required to get one issued to verify his graduation and post-graduation degrees by the Higher Education Commission before proceeding abroad.

“I have been told that the education board cannot help if we fail to provide them with a school-attested photograph from his Matriculation years,” said Commodore (retd) Najeeb Anjum, who was pursuing the application on Yasir’s behalf.

When approached by The Express Tribune, BSEK secretary Hoor Mazhar explained that the board had, for a period of three years, adopted the policy of pasting candidates’ photographs on the certificates. The policy was later revoked.

“In case any of the Matric graduates from the 1999 to 2001 batches requires a duplicate certificate, the board must reissue the certificate with his or her photograph,” she explained.

Since the BSEK does not contain the candidates’ photographic record in its archives, it shifts the responsibility of furnishing the photographs onto the applicants.

For Mazhar, the education board cannot reissue a certificate with the candidate’s recent photograph because she believes that the foreign embassies and consulates would declare them forged. “Our faces do significantly change when we reach the age of maturity,” she asserted.

Anjum was, however, unable to fathom why any foreign embassy would declare a certificate fake if it was reissued not only with a recent photograph, but also bearing the date of reissuance and the duplicate stamp.

Meanwhile, The Express Tribune has learnt that the board is not entertaining the ‘most urgent’ requests for duplicate certificates, even after receiving the special Rs2,500 fee from applicants. This is because the computer systems at the education board are not working.

Instead of complying with the two-day deadline for most urgent cases, the applicants are being told to collect their certificates anytime after 10 days or even a month.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2014.