Govt officials, media raid SSC exam centres
Karachi: On the directives of Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad, a joint team of government officials and media persons raided various examination centres, where the Secondary School Certificate examinations are being held.
During the raid, use of unfair means and presence of irrelevant persons were witnessed at various centres.
Additional Secretary to Governor on Education Kamran Shamshad and Bari Jilani and District Officer (Headquarter), Education Department of the City District Government, Ahmed Nawaz Niazi, visited several examination centres in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town along with the local media persons to inspect the conditions during the exams.
The local media pointed out the presence of youngsters and other people, probably the cheating mafia, outside as well as on the premises of the examination centres. During a joint raid at the Government Boys Secondary School, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Block-6, many cases were witnessed where unfair means were being used while the centre superintendent failed to answer the queries of the raiding team.
M Akber Masood Khan, Centre Superintendent, made lots of excuses rather than giving any proper justification of the illegal practices that were witnessed at his centre. Special rooms were arranged by the school management while the invigilators and candidates were both from the same school. Also, the centre superintendent could not show the necessary documents to prove their presence at the examination centre. The News also pointed out the presence of an outsider in a class room.
However, Khan said that the person, named Abdul Mateen s/o Sher Ali, came to assist him as he was facing pressure from external elements.
“Mateen was my student and he is helping me to keep the cheating mafia outside the school building,” Khan told the media. Meanwhile, Mateen said that he completed his studies from a private school. “I came here to visit as I had studied in the primary level classes at this school,” he added.
At least 500 students of 13 schools appeared at the said centre while there were 26 rooms, in which the candidates appeared for the paper of English, Class X, Secondary School Certificate (SSC). It is necessary to mention here that most of the teachers (invigilators) present at the school were from another school and while quite a few were not even teachers at all.
The teachers at the Government Girls Secondary School, University Campus, located at main University Road, were also seen helping the candidates in solving the paper without any fear. During the joint raid, it was witnessed that a Junior School Teacher, named Ayesha Soomro had a list of favourite candidates and she was monitoring the whole episode.
As observed by The News, Soomro had a personal diary, in which the names and roll numbers of the candidates were written. However, she tore the papers and flushed them in the washroom.
Another female, Rizwana Mangi, who introduced herself as the younger sister of the headmistress of the school, was also assisting the favourite students. When the media asked the reason of her presence in the centre, she replied that she was a cousin of the headmistress. However, later Mangi refused to say the same in front of the media.
There were over 600 students from 38 schools but only 17 teachers were available in 26 classrooms. Like the latter government school, most of the teachers do not belonged to the same school. Later, Shamshad said that the purpose of the visit was to boost the moral of the students, who were not a part of cheating mafia.
Source: The News
Date:3/31/2010
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