In a bid to reform the education sector, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government has decided to centralize the matriculation and intermediate board examinations, paper setting, and marking throughout the province.
In a recent high-level meeting, Chief Minister (CM) KP, Mahmood Khan, ordered the elementary and secondary education departments to come up with a plan for speedy implementation of the reforms after the legislative process, Dawn reported.
The meeting was organized to deliberate the reforms in eight boards of intermediate and secondary education that are functioning in the province.
As quoted by Dawn, the official who was present in the meeting said, “It was decided in the meeting that the Peshawar education board will be the ‘mother board’, while the seven others will function as its branches”.
Powers to conduct and mark exam papers would be given to the Peshawar Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE).
He further explained that the education boards except Peshawar would operate as board facilitation centers.
The documents produced in the meeting showed that the primary aim of the centralized examination would be to conduct standardized examinations, standardized paper setting and marking, centralized control, and ensure quality and efficiency.
The chief minister has ordered to constitute a five-member committee, which would develop a mechanism for holding centralized board examinations, paper setting, and paper marking.
As per the official, the CM also instructed the elementary and secondary education department to recommend names of competent officers and educationists who can be included in the committee as soon as possible.
The transportation of the exam papers was also reviewed in the meeting and it was finalized that the committee would work on the safe transportation of the papers from one district to another.
The CM has also coined the idea to form sub-offices of the proposed Mother Board (Peshawar BISE) at district levels.
Under the proposed plan, the officials at sub-offices would receive exam papers through email from the central board just a night before examinations, and the sub-offices would print them immediately and dispatch them to the exam halls before dawn.
In this way, the chances of a paper leak would be reduced because currently, the papers were printed and dispatched to distant regions days before the exams.
The documents presented in the meeting by the education department showed that Peshawar BISE was founded in 1961, Swat, Bannu, and Abbottabad were established in 1990, Malakand, Mardan, and Kohat in 2002, and Dera Ismail Khan in 2006.
The increase in education boards has resulted in negative trends like the promotion of regionalism, a tussle among the boards, lackluster paper marking, absence of standardization in paper setting and assessment, and corruption in the boards, officials revealed in the meeting.
All of the education boards had been operating under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education Act, 1990, which was enacted on 4 December 1990.
The officials said the provincial government would begin legislation after the concerned departments complete their homework for making Peshawar BISE the ‘central board’ and others as the board facilitation centers.
