SSC exams age limit | NED results | Dawn Expo
SSC exams age limit not to affect current batches
Karachi, March 29, 2008: The recent decision of the Inter-Board Committee of
Chairmen (IBCC) that a student must be minimum 15 years of age at the time of
passing out his or her secondary school certificate examination will not be
applicable to those currently studying in Class IX and X.
The IBCC's
decision, which is aimed at bringing a halt to the general trend of 12 and
13-year-old students passing matriculation exams and admitting children below
five years in Class I, has created anxiety among parents of Class IX and X
students who were below the minimum age limit fixed by the IBCC for the students
passing their matric exams.
The parents were uncertain whether their
children, who won't be fulfilling the new criteria of minimum age required for
clearing matriculation exams, would be allowed to appear in the forthcoming
annual examinations or if they would be detained in their class till they
attained the minimum age required for passing their matric
exams.
Responding to queries, a member of the IBCC and Chairman of
the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi, Prof Anwar Ahmed Zai, said the
IBCC's recent decision would not be applicable to the students of Class IX and X
whose examinations were scheduled to be held in a couple of months. He made it
clear that the IBCC's decision was aimed at bringing a halt to the trend of
admitting children below five years in Class I, and it would be applicable from
the new academic session of schools.
Prof Zai, who had also served as a
director of schools in the district government, said: "In fact, the IBCC
decision has been necessitated under the rules framed by the National Education
Policy of 1998 as a student must be five years old at the time of his admission
to Class I so that by the time he passes his matriculation examination he is
15."
Sources in the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, also admitted
that a number of students below 13 and 14 years were clearing the matriculation
examination as several private schools had been giving admission in Class I to
children below five years.
A number of educationists, meanwhile,
denounced the private schools' trend of unnecessarily increasing the span of
pre-primary classes of both the Montessori and kindergarten systems of education
from two years to four years. They said young children needlessly spent four
years in pre-primary classes before being admitted to Class I.
"As a
matter of fact, parents have no choice but to get their children, even below
three years, admitted to the Montessori system's initial class, i.e. nursery,
without realising its psychological, physical and biological effects on their
children merely because certain prestigious schools do not give admission to
students in Class I directly," an expert deplored.
However, some parents
think the IBCC's recent decision regarding age limit has diminished the
prospects for talented students to take double promotions on a basis of
extraordinary performance in their examinations.
NED results
The NED University of Engineering
& Technology has announced the results of Industrial Electronics Engineering
(Final Year)-2007 of 2003-04 batch. According to the results, Zeeshan Shareef
secured first position while Danish Rathore and Syed Wasif Ali Shah secured
second and third positions respectively. The News
Dawn education expo
Karachi: The 5th annual Education Expo-2008 organised by the
Dawn Media Group is to be held at the Karachi Expo Centre on March 30 and
31.
The event, the largest education exhibition held in Pakistan,
assembles leading local and foreign colleges, universities and higher education
institutions, notably from the USA, UK, Australia, UAE and Malaysia, to provide
an opportunity to visitors to interact directly with faculty, admission officers
and career counsellors and enrol themselves in the institutions of their choice,
says a press release. Entry to the exhibition is free.
The event has been
scheduled at a time when admissions to most of the participating institutions
are open. Dawn
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