KARACHI: A large number of students gathered outside the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) on Thursday and staged a protest against what they termed wrongdoing in the first-year exam results which left over 60 per cent students failed. They were demanding free, fair and immediate investigation into the issue.

Participating in the protest organised by the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT), the protesters also demanded the authorities to take action against the officials involved. Addressing the protest demonstration, Jamaat-i-Islami Karachi chief Munim Zafar alleged that the board was directly responsible for the manipulation of the results.

“The Sindh government’s decision to devise a parliamentary committee is not enough,” he said. “The committee’s findings should be made public, and anyone found involved in the result tampering must be held accountable. Merely raising students’ marks to resolve the issue, as was done previously when a similar problem cropped up, is not sufficient. The committee should involve all relevant stakeholders to thoroughly investigate the broader irregularities that took place.”

The JI city chief stated that while the provincial education budget had surpassed Rs1.1 trillion over the past three years, there were still 2,997 public schools lacking boundary walls.

Addressing the protesters, IJT Karachi president Aabish Siddiqui called on the Sindh government to end discrimination against the students in the city, describing the situation as unacceptable, with the educational future of 80 per cent of students at risk.

“The students have suffered due to blunders of the BIEK officials,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2025