KARACHI - Board of Secondary Education Karachi Chairman Professor Dr Saeeduddin has started working on an aggressive strategy with new gadgets and tactics to finish copy culture and the mafia behind it, from the port city.

In an interview with APP, the BSEK chairman warned the cheaters and their facilitators of very strict systematic and administrative checks by the board under its very calculated and scientific strategy from next annual examinations of ninth and tenth classes. There would be zero tolerance to the cheating and tempering with the results.

The board, with its enhanced efficiency, would try to announce the ninth and tenth classes results ahead of the past schedule, he said.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, in his recent budget speech, re-affirmed his government’s commitment to weed out cheating culture from the province once for all.

“This year, we have taken steps to identify and eradicate cheating mafia in different cities of Sindh. We will further strengthen the examination system so that no one could deprive talented and hardworking students of their better carrier,” the CM asserted.

Professor Dr Saeeduddin stressed that instead of relying on the use of unfair means, students and the teachers must utilise their energy, time and skills for the best preparation of the examinations.

“We have planned detailed meetings with Heads of private and government schools to inform them that BSEK would be more tough from next year by using many innovative tools and mechanism.”

They would also be convinced to support the board’s efforts to eliminate the menace of copy culture and help build a strong academic base for students who are the future of the country, he said.

Professor Dr. Saeeduddin, who is Ph.D, had served on senior positions in Education department before taking the responsibility as Chairman BSEK in the second half of last year.

He was literally worried, but showed very high moral and determination that the copy culture would be eliminated through coordinated and targeted efforts supported by the government and law enforcing agencies.

He praised Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah for showing his resolve and extending full support to eliminate the cheating mafia, who are enemies of the nation.

He appealed to all sections of the society especially political and religious leaders to play their historic role in wiping out the copy culture, which has eroded and badly damaged the nation in the face of tough global competition and fast evolution of new disciplines.

About some major corrective measures being introduced by the board, BSEK Chairman said, from next year the number of examinations centres would be reduced to one hundred and fifty against 392 centres in the past; most of these did not meet the defined criterion and environment. It was also very difficult to properly monitor such a large number of centres spred to even slum areas of the city. From next year, he said, only the schools having big buildings with all required facilities and protection would be selected as the centres. That, government schools would be given priority.

He said that at least three months before the examinations, final list of the exam centres would be displayed at the board office along with uploading on its website. For this purpose, the board teams would soon start visiting the government and private schools in the city to compile details /data to determine their fitness as the centres.

“This would help escape hassle at the board’s end and confusion among students, parents and teachers,” he argued. He said, this was his first experience of holding exams in this mega city with diverse population having different approach and behavior towards education. Next year, he continued, he would be able to conduct the exams in the best possible manner.

Besides ensuring right selection of schools as the centres, only teachers of very good repute and strong commitment would be assigned the duties as chief control officers, superintendents and invigilators.

“Now, I have understood the demography of Karachi,” he remarked.

Professor Dr. Saeeduddin said, the board had also improved the assessment/marking procedures to ensure transparency and authenticity of the results and for their earliest possible announcement.

The board had received around 1,60,000 answer copies and after secret coding, these copies had been handed over to three assessment centres set up by the board at different secret places in the city.

For ten assessors/examiners, one Deputy Head Assessor had been appointed who would see the marking done by his juniors. Then, Head Assessor would counter check the marking.

For the first time, the board had appointed Deputy Heads and Head Checkers over the Checkers, Chairman said.

When the copies would return to the board office, the marks awarded by the assessors would be re-counted by all these checkers placed in the above three categories so that there was no chance of mistake in the totaling.

The board had also made marks and other related data entry process more accurate. Now, the feeding of the data would be double checked by senior officials to ensure accuracy of their juniors’ work.

By adopting this new technique, BSEK would have very nominal scrutiny cases to deal with, in future, Professor Dr Saeeduddin said. 

The BSEK chairman informed that the board’s question bank would be ready before end of July. Hence, number of senior subject teachers do submit their questions for the papers. Then, Board’s examination committees including the most senior subject teachers would do screening and evaluate the questions before sorting out certain number of these for inclusion into the pool being utilized for making question papers. The screening and evaluation of the questions would be completed from August to November.

This board effort would minimize the chance of guessing about the questions to be placed in the next examination even by the teachers who had contributed in this questions bank because lot of activities would have been done in between, he expressed his satisfaction.

Professor Dr Saeeduddin said the distribution of admit cards would be completed at least ten days before the examinations so that in case of missing the students could get the same in time.