July 19, 2008	Saturday	Rajab 15, 1429

KARACHI, July 18: The Inter-Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC), a representative body of all educational boards of the country, has turned down a request from the NWFP for lifting the age bar on the candidates appearing in the matriculation examination.

The request for relaxing the minimum age from 14 years, as fixed recently, to lower side for SSC part-II candidates was forwarded by the NWFP government to the IBCC and was discussed at a recent meeting of the committee. However, the participants did not approve it on the grounds that such a relaxation could encourage the trend of double promotion at schools level and could also affect the quality of education.

An IBCC member who attended the meeting told Dawn on Friday that another proposal forwarded by the committee of chairmen of the Punjab educational boards was also rejected by the IBCC. The proposal pertained to allowing Science group students to appear as private candidates in the board’s examinations.

The participants argued that the Science group examinations involved practicals and private candidates could not avail such facilities for preparation and practical examination. Moreover, they said, private candidates could not meet the condition of 75 per cent attendance which was mandatory for all the candidates appearing in the board examinations across the country.

The IBCC member said that the meeting was not approve of a request from the Allama Iqbal Open University for the grant of certificate-awarding status for the AIOU in the case of Intermediate Science (Pre-medical) group. It was noted that the university was basically a distant learning educational institution.

He said that although all the IBCC members opposed the proposal on the grounds that such a decision would amount to a violation of the rules governing the educational boards, the meeting decided to refer the matter to its select committee for an advice. It was decided that the matter would be discussed at the next IBCC meeting in the light of the select committee’s report.

According to Prof Ahmed Zai, the chairman of the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) and also a member of the IBCC, all decisions taken at the IBCC forum are required to be implemented by all educational boards of the country in letter and spirit to ensure a uniform policy to be pursued by all boards.

Technical boards

A two-day Inter Provincial Conference of controllers of examinations of the boards of technical education has agreed not to allow any candidate having failed to clear four or more papers in his/her first year examination to attempt the second year examination, PPI adds

As regards the grace marks, the conference unanimously recommended that a policy should be formulated keeping in view the requirement of technical education. Under the existing policy in general education, a candidate cannot be granted more than six grace marks.

The conference was organised by the Sindh Board of Technical Education, Karachi. It discussed the existing assessment and promotion rules for technical boards’ examination across the country and formulated recommendations to improve the system.

Mr Asad Butt, the controller examinations in the Punjab Technical Board, Prof Syed Sirajul Islam Bukhari, the controller of examinations in the Sindh Board of Technical Education, Engineer Abdul Ghaffar, the chairman of the NWFP Technical Board and Syed Salman Shah, the deputy-controller of examinations (Technical) of the Balochistan Intermediate and Secondary Board attended the conference.

Prof Mohammad Saeed Siddiqui, the chairman of the Sindh Board of Technical Education (SBTE) who also holds additional charge of head of the Committee of Chairmen and Technical Directors (CCDTE), told the concluding session that the conference had provided a guideline to the participants for the betterment of technical and vocational education in the country.

He announced that another meeting would be held on August 19 and 20 in Karachi to discuss the issues on which a consensus was yet to be reached. He said that the final recommendations of conference would be forwarded to the CCDTE and the IBCC in their next meetings for a final approval.

Prof Sirajul Islam Bukhari expressed the hope that all the officials at the conference would conduct examinations in the greater interest of the students and support the recommendations presented at the conference.