I TEACH English to Karachi board’s class IX and X students at a private secondary school. We, the teachers, have been asked by the school administration to brief our students about the e-answer sheet that will be used as per the relevant instructions issued by the Sindh government.

As is common knowledge, matriculation exams are just round the corner, and now when schools have already finished their syllabus and conducted preliminary exams, the government has woken up from its deep slumber to inform that the examinations would now be conducted in a different manner.

Although we had already taken tests and exams in our school in line with the previous system, we agreed to guide the students to the best of our capability. While searching about the e-answer system, I saw a video posted by the government on its official website. I gathered the infor-

mation that students will have to write one answer on each page, and they will have to start a new answer on a new page. The authorities have not clarified about Urdu and English papers where there are two parts of multiple choice questions (MCQs); one is literature and the other one is language.

Moreover, both subjects have several parts of many questions. For example, in English section B, the second question has seven parts, and then there is another question ‘Do as directed’, which has 20 points with different sections and parts. The same is the case with the Urdu paper.

I wonder how our students will handle the exams when their teachers have no clue about the new system. We neither have any briefing from the government nor from the school. It is all a big lump of confusion.

Tahmina Mahfooz
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2026