High examination dues of Karachi secondary board
High examination dues halt literacy growth
Karachi, Sep 19: Apart from public or private schools in Karachi, students
have to pay huge money to Board of Secondary Education (BSE) Karachi
until they pass their matriculation examinations, sources privy to BSE
revenue policy said on Friday. Although students
have to reach BSE through their respective schools but they still have
to pay these dues. External students who cannot afford schooling
expenses and want to do matric as private candidates are facing severe
financial burden because of different fee accounts, which BSE has
levied. BSE had introduced enrolment form policy in 1997 which was
free of cost. BSE had in past fixed price of enrolment form price as
Rs15 in 2005 but today it is sold at Rs35 each. These forms could only
be had from approved branches of bank, which receives Rs5 as bank
service charges once for selling the form and once for receiving it
from the students. Examination form price is Rs35 excluding Rs10
for bank charges. Each student has to get a pay order from bank after
paying Rs102. This additional amount of money could be saved if BSE
would have opened a facilitation counter. Each student, whether
from a government school or private institution has to pay Rs10 for
scouts fund and Rs30 for sports. Each student has to pay Rs100 in
advance for certificate but those students who fail to pass their
examinations in first attempt would have to pay this amount every time
they file their examination papers. The concerned schools arrange
practical examinations for their students but BSE receives Rs100 per
student. Parent institutions normally issue provisional certificates to
their students but BSE charges Rs175 for ordinary duration of 15 days,
Rs325 for urgent duration of 7 days and Rs525 for same day
duration. Migration certificate and duplicate mark sheet fees are also same.
Duplicate certificate fee along with form is Rs635 for ordinary
duration of 15 days, Rs1,035 for urgent duration of 7 days and Rs2,035
for same day duration. Scrutiny fee per subject is Rs175 along with
scrutiny form while duplicate admit card fee is Rs125 along with form,
which was just Rs10 in recent past. There are approximately 300,000
students that appear in annual examinations. Thus the board earns
Rs10,500,000 from sell of enrollment forms while students pay bank
charges up to Rs3,000,000. The amount paid for bank order comes to
Rs30,600,000. BSE collects Rs3,000,000 from students for scouts fund
and Rs9,000,000 for sports fund. Students pay to BSE Rs for
examinations forms Rs10,500,000 and Rs3,000,000 for bank charges. BSE
also charges Rs10,000 per private institutions for recognition followed
by Rs4,000 for renewal per year. Cyclostyled syllabus is sold for Rs80.
There are around 4,000 private institutions in city that have so far
paid Rs40,000,000 for recognition while they pay Rs16,000,000 for
renewal each year. Private institutions recover this amount of money
from students or from their parents. Government should take serious
notice of BSE's revenue policy so that education can become affordable
to all the students. It should be understood that only lower and middle
class schools get them recognised with the BSE while those in high
profile areas have jumped over to other examination boards. The nation
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Merit supreme in hiring of teachers
Karachi: Senior Minister for Education Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq has
said that all appointments of teachers will be made on merit without
any political interference, as education is the government's top
priority. Outlining salient features of the new appointments
policy at a press conference held at the Committee Room No 1 of the
Sindh Assembly on Friday, the provincial minister said that
appointments would be made on contract for three years and on a
non-transferable basis. He explained that once hired teachers would not
be transferred to institutions other than their place of appointment.
He said that 187,000 candidates appeared in the tests conducted for
13,500 posts of schoolteachers. He said 55,000 candidates, who obtained
60 per cent marks in the tests, were declared successful. Those
appeared in and passed the recruitment tests included MBBS degree
holders, he added. The senior minister said that appointments
of successful candidates would be made on a fixed number of vacancies
at the union council level. In case seats were left in a union council,
top scorers of the neighbouring union council would be appointed, he
said, adding that no teacher from other district would be entitled to
get the job. This method would be replicated at the tehsil and district
levels to ensure transparency in the recruitment process. He
said these conditions set by the World Bank caused a delay in the
issuance of appointment letters to the successful candidates, though he
was confident that the process of recruitment would be transparent and
jobs would be given to meritorious candidates only. Dawn
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