Priorities: Class nine, Matric exams moved up for NA-246 by-polls

Elections cannot be held on same day as exam venues serve as polling stations

KARACHI: The Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, (BSEK) revised the schedule for the exams of class nine and Matric to allow the polling for NA-246 by-elections on April 23.

Polling in the constituency will now be held on April 23 as announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Earlier, the provincial election commissioner, Syed Nadeem Haider, had approached the BSEK, requesting the board to reschedule the examination dates.

"The secondary board has rescheduled their examination dates," said Haider. "Exams for both the classes will conclude by April 21 now."

The provincial election commission has also informed the ECP about the revised schedule and an official notice was subsequently issued by the ECP.

Haider also told The Express Tribune that an independent candidate, Ashraf Qureshi, has appealed against the rejection of his nomination form by the provincial election commission. The last date for deciding the appeals by the tribunals is April 30.

The Matric students are, however, unhappy with the decision primarily because the BSEK, in its revised schedule, has reduced the two- to three-day gaps meant for preparations in between the exams.

"Why do they need to make the board exams tougher for thousands of students," asked Osama Shoaib, a Matric student at Usman Public School. "Is the election more important than our exams and future?"

For Manahil Khan, a class nine student at Metropolitan Academy, the exams will be much tougher now since the students will not have more than a day's gap in between the exams, except for chemistry. "For each exam, we have a lot of course matter to go through," she said. "One day is not enough even for revision."

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2015.