The leaked Peshawar tuition documents have left students, parents and educators questioning the credibility of the system.
PESHAWAR:
The recent matriculation exams in Peshawar have come under intense public scrutiny as repeated reports of document leaks dominated social media and drew strong criticism from parents and education experts, who described the situation as a serious failure of the government and the education board.
Haris Khan, a resident of Gulbahar, shared that he had serious doubts about the transparency of the recent Peshawar Board exams. “Almost every day there was news of job leaks. One day it was one job and the next day another. Under such circumstances, how can anyone trust the fairness of the examination system or the marks awarded?”
“The government should install cameras in all examination halls and adopt a more robust networking and surveillance system to safeguard the future of students,” Khan said.
Shah Nawaz Khan, professor at Islamia College Peshawar, revealed that the document leaks during the recent matric exams were a big mistake and reflected the incompetence of both the administration and the government. According to Khan, some private schools, in connivance with authorities and administrators, buy examination halls to ensure high marks for their students. These results are then used in advertisements to attract more parents to enroll their children in those schools.
“In the past, such incidents of publishing documents before the scheduled time had never happened in the Peshawar education board. However, this time, within ten minutes of the start of each publication, the same document was being circulated in WhatsApp groups. This not only showed the incompetence of the board officials but also raised serious questions about the transparency of the government’s education system,” Khan said.
Peshawar Board Chairman Khuda Bakhsh told The Express PAkGazette that though some reports circulated on social media about one or two document leaks during the matric exams, claims that all documents were leaked were false. Bakhsh claimed that during the exams action was taken against 24 teachers who were suspended after papers from an exam hall were leaked.
“Strict measures have been taken against various examination centers and cheating practices, so there has been no incident of paper leakage in the ongoing intermediate examinations so far. Around 100,000 students and 6,000 invigilators are involved in the examination process, and sometimes some invigilators ‘cheat’ and share exams or multiple-choice questions with family members. However, strict measures have been implemented this year and barring one or two cases, no paper leakage has occurred,” he said. Bakhsh.
On the other hand, some parents also expressed concern about the recently implemented cluster system. Murad Ali Shah, a resident of Peshawar and father of a daughter appearing for class 9 exams, told The Express PAkGazette that the system created difficulties for many families as some students were allotted nearby exam centers while others were allotted distant exam centres, causing major inconvenience to parents.
Khuda Bakhsh believed that some people spread fake news and misinformation on social media, which others circulate without verification despite it not being true. “Exam rooms were moved from private buildings to government buildings to better prevent cheating,” he responded.
