PBTE DAE and DCom results scam

PBTE computer staff in 'engineered' results scam
Lahore, April 02: The Punjab Board of Technical Education (PBTE) controller of examinations has unearthed a massive scam of tampering with DAE and DCom second annual examinations, 2010, results by board's computer section staff.

Examinations Controller Prof Muhammad Tariq said that he would also recheck the previous results to see whether such malpractices had been committed by the computer section officials in the past.

According to documents available, board's computer section officials changed 598 results of 266 candidates across the Punjab. In all identified cases, the candidates were given marks to pass all papers. For example, roll number 934 obtained five and two marks in mathematics A and B papers. The final result showed that the candidate had obtained 35 and 32 marks in the two papers.

Similarly, roll number 6267 obtained 21, five and six marks in English and mathematics A and B papers, while the final results showed 41, 35 and 30 marks obtained. Another candidate (roll number 8139) secured 11, 10, 28, 11, 11, 14, three and three marks in chemistry, civil technology-114, civil technology-123, civil technology-133, English, Islamic Studies, mathematics A and B papers. However, the tampered results showed that the candidate had secured 21, 41, 42, 21, 41, 21, 33 and 33 marks.

Prof Tariq has brought the scandal in the knowledge of the board's top management as well as Tevta Chairman Saeed Alvi, the controlling authority of the board.

PBTE Chairman Dr Muhammad Shafique has called an emergent meeting of the PBTE board (the governing body) on April 4 (Monday) to take up the case. Sources say the board management is identifying the officials involved in the scam. The probe will also lead to the identification of a mafia operating in various technical and commerce education institutions.

Prof Tariq confirmed the results tampering scandal and said the board would hold a formal inquiry, cancel tampered results and penalise the officials involved in the scandal.

Though the DAE and DCom second annual examination 2010 results were declared in January this year, it is learnt that Prof Tariq got a tip that some candidates had been declared pass though they had no competence to pass even a single subject.

Consequently, he decided to get DAE and DCom results re-assessed through external verifiers.

The external scrutinizers examined the scrutiny prints and final result sheets and reported that 848 results were changed, including 250 legitimate corrections. The scrutiny of the remaining 598 results (of 266 candidates) showed that the results were tampered with and candidates were granted pass marks. This forgery was done by data entry operators at a time when the results were to be converted from fictitious numbers to the original roll numbers that follows the printing of result gazette and its publication on the board's website. Data entry operators are directly supervised by two computer programmers, who have the authority to edit the data.

Prof Tariq who conducted the DAE and DCom exams as his first assignment as controller of examinations, says all forged results' answer-books, award lists, scrutiny prints and the computer data regarding changed results had been sealed.

Unearthing of the massive results changing scandal has again raised fingers on the working of board's computer section that has always been regarded notorious for such malpractices. It may be mentioned that computer section system analyst Zulfiqar A Cheema, who had originally designed and remained head of the section till the midst of last year is being grilled by inquiry committees.

Prof Tariq as PBTE secretary had detected a question-paper leak scandal in 2006 and those involved were arrested in Multan and later dismissed from service.

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Many a 'star' performer in Class-V, VIII exams
Lahore: The Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) on Thursday declared the results of province-wide uniform examination of Grade-VIII students while downgrading pass percentage from 33 per cent to 25 per cent besides promoting hundreds of students with a "star" mark, who failed in any one of seven subjects.

In Grade-V examination, the PEC top officials said, the pass benchmark was kept at 33 per cent, however, students failing in any one of the five subjects were promoted with a "star" mark.

According to the results statistics, as many as 1.471 million students were registered for the Grade-V examination while 1.420 million appeared for the exam. Some 51,783 students did not appear for the examination. As much as 89.24 per cent candidates passed the examination including those failed in any one of the five subjects.

For Grade-VIII exam, the PEC had registered 1.059 million students and out of them as many as 1.034 million took the exam. Some 24,442 students did not appear for the examination.

Of those appeared, 83.93 per cent students were declared pass (according to 25 per cent pass percentage benchmark) including those who failed in any one of the seven subjects.

When contacted, PEC chief executive officer Naseem Nawaz said the commission had declared the district-wise results and no overall top positions were declared. PEC operation manager Iqbal Ahmad Awan said the commission had identified position holders at respective districts level.

Lahore executive district officer (education) Pervaiz Akhtar said his examination branch officials had themselves identified the position holders overall as well as gender-wise as no such data was communicated by the PEC. He said the EDO office also faced pressure from students and their parents because the PEC uploaded the results in the afternoon. It may be mentioned that the Grade-V and VIII results were again removed from the website at around 10pm.

In Lahore district, the pass percentage in Grade-V examination stood at 90.74 per cent and 83.96 per cent in Grade-VIII.

According to the overall positions in Grade-V in Lahore, Nimra Khalid of Khairunnisa Girls High School stood first with 533 marks out of 600. The second position was shared by four students by obtaining 529 marks each. Of four second position holders three students – Bushra Majeed, Fizza Javed, Amina Farooq are from Khairunnisa Girls High School and Muhammad Arqam Ghaffar belongs to St.

Anthony School. The third position was bagged by Farah Arif of Convent of Jesus and Mary with 527 marks.

In Grade-VIII exam, the overall first position was bagged by Ifrah Irshad of Crescent Model High School with 746 marks out of 800. The second and third positions were secured by Divisional Public School's Fizza Ali and Muhammad Ali Akhtar with 730 and 729 marks, respectively.

A number of students complained that they had been given quite less marks as they were expecting higher scores on the basis of their performance in the examination. Dawn

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64th PU Inter-Collegiate Girls Athletics Championship kicks off
Lahore: Punjab University (PU) Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran inaugurated 64th PU Inter-Collegiate Girls Athletics Championship at the Punjab Stadium on Friday. A renowned social worker Raja Manawar, Prof Dr Amin Athar, Dr Samar Fatima, Abida Tanveer, Shamsa Hashmi, Zafar Rashid, Anwarul Haq, Farhat Siddiqi, Mian Amjad, principals of participating colleges and coaches were also present on the occasion. While addressing the inaugural ceremony, Dr Kamran said he was immensely pleased to know that for the first time 26 teams from different girls' colleges were participating in the championship, as our society does not appreciate women participating in sports. He said that sports created team spirit and due to sports, a person learned to cope with both success and failure. Sports like 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500-metre race, relay race, 100 and 400-meter hurdle race, long jump, high jump, triple jump and many other games are included in the championship. The closing ceremony would be held today (Saturday) at 10am, the chief guest of the ceremony being PU Women Sports Tournament Committee's President Prof Abida Tanveer. Daily times

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Teachers boycott anti-polio drive
Lahore: The Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) and Joint Action Commission (JAC) of schoolteachers have announced a boycott of the upcoming duties in the anti-polio vaccination drive, starting from April 4.

The PTU and JAC office-bearers, including Rana Muhammad Arshad, Syed Sajjad Kazmi, Rana Liaqat and others, said the involvement of schoolteachers in additional and non-academic duties had been hampering academic activities at the schools.

They said such assignments had also been resulting in poor performance of students in the examinations and every time the teachers were held accountable for poor performance of the students.

They further said the teachers would also boycott the duties related to upcoming census surveys. The PTU and JAC have demanded the government not include schoolteachers in non-academic activities in future. The news

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Spiritual quackery - recurring theme at GCU arts festival
Lahore: Spiritual quacks were highlighted as one of the biggest sources of social evils in our society at the Performing Arts Festival organised by the Government College University's (GCU) Psychology Department on Friday.

As many as 16 universities and colleges took part in the festival and staged mimes and dramas on the themes of "Sufism", "Religion and psychology" and "Human nature". The plots of most of the mimes and dramas revolved around the spiritual quacks and the negative role they play in creating paranoia in the minds of people through tactics like fortunetelling.

The opening play of the festival was presented by the Punjab University (PU) Institute for Art and Culture, that portrayed how the so-called spiritual healers in our society misguide people even on religious issues and destroy families for money.

The play presented by the students of Kinnaird College for Women won the first prize.

The story was of a girl who suffered from a psychological problem but her mother-in-law, instead of consulting a doctor or a psychologist, took her to a spiritual quack. The play portrayed the blind faith some women in our society have on these "immoral and characterless cheaters".

The GCU Psychology Department presented a mime in which four different traditions, including "Heer Waris Shah" and "Whirling Derwasih and Dhamal", were staged. The GCU students also presented a drama "Sayan Aur Psychiatrist", written by the late eminent writer Ashfaq Ahmed. The play underlined the spiritual and social problems of our society. The Fatima Jinnah Medical College, Rawalpindi, students staged a play on the topic of "nationalism", in which they highlighted the invaluable love of cadets for their country.

The PU Department of Psychology also presented a play on "childhood trauma and its effects on later life". Daily times

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