KARACHI: The Sindh cabinet on Tuesday ordered a high-level inquiry into irregularities in all educational boards across the province and allowed extra marks to thousands of students who had appeared in first year exam conducted by the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) last year.
The cabinet meeting, chaired by Sindh CM, expressed displeasure over the performance of educational boards in the province and directed the chief secretary to constitute a committee comprising upright officers to conduct inquiry against irregularities in all the educational boards.
A large number of first year students in Karachi, many of whom had secured more than 80-85 percent marks in matriculation exam, were given less than 50pc marks in the intermediate exams, while several others failed in many subjects.
The poor results in BIEK had triggered protests by the students, political parties and civil rights campaigners and led to the formation of a special committee of the Sindh Assembly to investigate the decline in passing percentage.
The cabinet was informed that a house panel formed a fact-finding committee, led by NED University’s Vice Chancellor Dr Sarosh Lodi, conducted a detailed inquiry and recommended to grant 20pc grace marks in Chemistry and 15pc each in Physics and Mathematics to all students.
A press statement said that the chief minister also directed reforms to improve BIEK operations and prevent such issues in the future.
It said that while the Sindh Boards Ordinance of 1972 did not allow for grace marks, a similar measure was approved by the caretaker chief minister in 2023 based on a previous inquiry.
Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2025