BISE Results -Inter results: Protesting students baton charged outside BISE

From - http://tribune.com.pk

A crowd of students protesting against delays in the finalisation of exam results were baton-charged outside Lahore Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) on Tuesday, before being reassured that the ‘rechecking’ process would be complete by Friday.

Students from Okara, Sheikhupura, Kasur and Lahore blocked the road outside the BISE building and shouted slogans calling on the education minister to resign. The protest was
led by members of the Students Action Committee (SAC) and the Insaf Students Federation. They also shouted slogans condemning the chief minister and president.

The SAC was formed in response to major errors in the results cards for the intermediate exams that were delivered to students. After major protests by students with glaring errors in their results, the government declared that all the marks would be tallied again, or ‘rechecked’.

The protesters at the BISE on Tuesday said that they were unhappy with the pace of this rechecking, though board officials insisted they were students who had failed the exams and were trying to exploit the situation to somehow obtain passing grades. The police baton-charged them after they refused to move off the road to allow traffic through.

Wahab Raza, a student from Lahore, said he had been visiting the BISE every day for several days but he wasn’t being helped. “They have help counters but the officials sitting there are not helping us at all,” he said.

Salman Ahmad said that the board could not be trusted and they would probably make errors in the rechecking process as well.

Board officials and SAC representatives met inside the BISE building after the baton-charge. SAC President Adil Rana said the board officials had pledged that the verification of results for Intermediate Part II would be complete by November 4 and the result cards would then be dispatched to students’ home addresses.

He condemned the baton-charge as excessive. “The students were staging a peaceful protest and it was shameful that kids who came to get their papers rechecked were baton-charged,” he said.

BISE spokesman Qaiser Virk said that the protestors were students who had failed the exams and were trying to put pressure on the board so they could pass. He said that there were plenty of teachers available to retally the scores. He said the latest protests were limited.

Secretary transferred

Meanwhile, Lahore BISE Secretary Mushtaq Tahir was transferred on Tuesday. Virk, the BISE spokesman, said it was a routine transfer. “He came here on deputation for two years and he completed his tenure.

He served here for about two years and three months,” he said.

Another board official suggested that Tahir’s transfer had more to do with the delay in the intermediate results.

The new BISE secretary is Abdul Razzaq Shahid, who previously served as an associate professor at a college in Multan.