All public sector schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have announced annual results for classes one to eight, showing a 100 percent success rate. As per the years-old policy, all the students have been promoted to the next classes.
The policy to promote students was introduced during the Awami National Party (ANP)-led coalition government ‘to discourage’ the trend of students dropping out, and is still in place.
“From class one to class five all students were passed by obtaining just 5 to 8 percent marks while the class six to class eight students were passed on just 15 to 18 percent marks as against the traditional benchmark of 33 percent,” The Express Tribune quoted an official of the education department as saying.
He said that the “useless policy” has been in place for the past 16 years, according to which no student can be failed, no matter how bad he/she performs in the examinations.
“It was introduced on the realization that students who don’t pass their annual exams feel discouraged, and so do their parents, and they just drop out of the school,” he said, adding that the policy has invited heavy criticism but hasn’t been changed.
“High schools often complain that they are enrolling students in class six who can’t write their own names. But this policy was introduced by the ANP government ‘to increase literacy rate’,” he said.
The official maintained that a lot of teachers are extremely critical of this policy, but cannot do anything as the policies are formulated in the power corridors without the consent of all stakeholders.
As part of the policy, high schools are compelled to enroll all the students coming from primary schools without any qualification tests. The school teachers believe that such students often prove to be a burden for them.
“This policy should be rolled back because it was tried and tested in the past 16 years and clearly it didn’t work,” said the official, adding that government should reintroduce board exams for classes five and eight.
