Speaking at a dialogue on Monday Learning Challenges and Inclusion of All, organised by the Idara-i-Taleem Aagahi and Pakistan Coalition for Education, the Standing Committee on Education Chairman Qamar-ul-Islam Raja informed the participants that the Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) will undergo reform. He said the proposed changes to its current set up had been approved by the chief minister. “The PEC’s set up had prevented it from delivering its intended benefits due to capacity issues”.
The new set up will give cluster-level examinations rather than centralised examinations. The PEC will still determine the content that students are to be tested on. A head master – who will head a cluster of schools – will design and formulate examination papers from the content provided by the PEC. “The PEC’s decentralisation will make it development authority rather than an examination authority”, said Raja.
School Education Department (Elementary) Deputy Secretary Mushtaq Sial said the PEC will create item banks, from which examinations papers will be formulated by the cluster groups. The PEC will still be responsible for determining the content. School headmasters, heading a cluster of schools, will design and formulate examination papers from the content provided by PEC.
He said the item banks will have similar content for all schools, including objectives and subjective questions. The PEC, he maintained, had not been dissolved but was being reformed.
Sial said all schools had been instructed to admit children with minor disabilities who could cope with mainstream classrooms.
Kinnaird College Principal Rukhsana David said as many as 10 visually impaired students had been admitted to the college. She said extra effort was needed to ensure the inclusion of disabled children in mainstream educational institutions. “Access to education is affected by our mindsets, not just the resource complaints”, she said.
Former elementary education DPI Jamil Najam said teachers’ associations need to be taken on board regarding local education authorities.
Punjab Education Foundation Chairman Raja Anwar said PEF partner schools currently accommodated children with minor disabilities. He said that 70 per cent of the schools were in south Punjab. He said in Rajanpur 52 per cent of the girls were enrolled in PEF schools.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2014.