Balochistan Point Voice of Nation
As per the result announced by Balochistan Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BBISE) 71 percent candidate, out of 26,882 that appeared in exams, could not pass it. Those who passed the exams have also scored lower marks, on average. As expected, Intermediate students who were victimized by BBISE took the streets. On 6th September, almost 3,000 students protested outside of BBISE building which led to violent clashes with police.
After protest of students Balochistan government constituted a committee that was supposed to probe the Intermediate result. Later, it was revealed that committee would only investigate issues raised by individual candidates through applications. Committee would submit its report within a week and it’s impossible for it to conduct any meaningful investigations on what has proved to be a controversial intermediate result.
Balochistan government has presented a unique and absurd explanation of controversial result. Secretary Education told media that in intermediate exams cheating was controlled and that’s why majority of students failed. No one can take this explanation of Secretary Education seriously. It’s a desperate attempt to cover-up a blunder committed by BBISE.
In this entire issue the most important thing is the future of thousands of students that has been put in jeopardy by BBISE. Thousands of students would not be able to take admission in universities because either they have failed in exams or scored low marks. Effectively one academic year of thousands of students would be lost due to incompetence of BBISE.
If truth be told, there were plenty of problems with BBISE even before announcement of this result. Chairman BBISE is a controversial person and everyone knows that he is the man of an ethnic political party. Appointments made in BBISE by Chairman based on ethnic favoritism also has pivotal role in the deterioration of quality of BBISE at large.
Now, government should do all it can to correct the blunder committed by BBISE. First thing that should be done is to replace the government officers in BBISE including Chairman, Controller and even secretary BBISE. There is no justification for them to continue serving in their existing capacities after what transpired in aftermath of intermediate result.
Secondly, government needs to form a new committee to probe intermediate result. Members of Committee should not comprise of any of the three aforementioned BBISE officials. Committee should probe the mechanisms through which the exams were conducted and papers were marked. If flaws are detected in the marking system then entire intermediate result should be declared null and void and new exams should be conducted to save the future of thousands of candidates.
Most importantly, government of Balochistan should establish new education boards in province on emergency basis. Initially three new boards should be formed and made functional in Loralai, Khuzdar and Turbat. That would not only recue the burden faced by BBISE and will also make it more convenient for students of districts located far from Quetta.
Intermediate result debacle is one more reason to support the assertion that educational emergency imposed by Balochistan government has failed. Never in history of Province have students in such huge numbers been declared fail. It’s a really big question mark on the claims of incumbent government about betterment in education.
Editor
The Balochistan Point
Published in The Balochistan Point on September 13, 2015
