Urdu Version

Q. Is Aga Khan University Examination Board (AKU-EB) changing the National
Curriculum?

A. AKU-EB is not authorised by the Government of Pakistan to change the national curriculum. It is one of the 27 examination boards in the country. AKU-EB's Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations, like those of the other examination boards, are based on the government-approved national curriculum and syllabi for all subjects, including Islamiyat and Pakistan Studies. The structure of the SSC examinations, a composite examination in each subject at the end of grade X is in accordance with the recommendations of the 8th Inter Provincial Education Ministers' meeting held on July 25, 2005 at Lahore .

Q. What are the attributes of AKU-EB?

A.  AKU-EB offers high quality examinations in English and Urdu; conform to international standards for examinations, such as the Code of Practice that governs the procedures of all British examination boards; evaluate the higher intellectual abilities of comprehension, logical thinking and problem solving; provide secure, valid and reliable assessments of educational achievement; and serve the purposes of certification of competences for school leavers and preparation for higher levels of education.

AKU-EB utilises state-of-the-art public examination practices. New technology provides the written answer of each question separately to several evaluators for marking, thereby ensuring that the evaluators cannot identify the candidate and enabling correlation of the marks for consistency. The technology assists the elimination of bias, curb dishonest practices, and greatly speed up the processes of verification and compilation of scores so that the results can be announced in six weeks.

Q. Will AKU-EB, or the Government, coerces schools into applying for affiliation?

A. Affiliation of schools with AKU-EB is purely voluntary and no school, public or private, is under any compulsion in this regard. AKU-EB was established by the Government of Pakistan in the private sector in order to provide choice for schools and candidates. AKU-EB is affiliating only interested non-government schools and has so far received inquiries from over 200 schools. These also includes 'O' and 'A' level schools offering SSC for the first time as there exists a board now which places a proper value on comprehension and application of knowledge.

Q. Will AKU-EB gradually take over government education boards?

A. AKU-EB has no intention of taking over any board nor does it have the capacity to do so. The government has also made it clear on a number of occasions that it has no plans to hand over any examination board to AKU-EB. In 1998, the government boards served 1.2 million candidates for the SSC and this number increased at the rate of 2.9 per cent per annum during the following five years. AKU-EB does not have the capacity to do the work undertaken by the existing examination boards. The purpose of AKU-EB is to provide a national model of high quality examinations at the secondary and higher secondary levels of education in order to facilitate the improvement of education in schools and colleges. It also enables development of capacity for educational assessment and tests in the country, which will benefit the functioning of the other examination boards and thus of teachers in all schools.

Q. Is AKU-EB going to 'secularise' the education system in Pakistan ?

A. Abiding by its Ordinance granted by the Government of Pakistan, AKU-EB follows the national curriculum in which Islamiat and Pakistan Studies are compulsory subjects. The notion of 'secularisation' is unfounded.

Q. Has USAID created AKU-EB in order to change the education system of Pakistan ?

A. The creation of AKU-EB was in response to a group of schools in Karachi , who appealed to Aga Khan University (AKU) as far back as 1995 for an alternate examination board that encouraged the development of reasoning and critical skills rather than rote learning in its examinations. The Board of Trustees of the University considered this proposal and approved it formally in 2000, following extensive consultations with educationists, policy makers and successive government administrations. Thereafter, on the encouragement of the government of Pakistan , it applied for recognition of AKU-EB and was granted the same through an Ordinance in November 2002.

The cost of implementing AKU-EB over the first five years amounts to Rs.438 million or US$7.3 million. The University has already allocated Rs.168 million ($2.8 million) from its own resources to support this initiative. USAID agreed to provide the balance of Rs.270 million or US$4.5 million, in 2003, under its agreement with the Government of Pakistan to support the Government's education sector reforms.

Claims of a hidden American agenda behind this additional funding do not reflect the reality on the ground. AKU-EB's efforts to make the National Curriculum accessible to teachers are carried forward by nineteen subject panels numbering 180 teachers, educators and subject experts. Every single one is a Pakistani national. There is just one expatriate on the Board's staff, the Director who is ex- Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Manchester . He has advised on public examination development in the UK , Caribbean, China , Mongolia and Vietnam , the Middle East and throughout English speaking Africa . Finally, the governing body of the Board has no USAID or any other American representation. AKU-EB is grateful for the selfless gift of the American people, which comes with no strings attached. Since the creation of Pakistan and over the past decades, it is well recognised that Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) including AKU has worked relentlessly to improve the quality of life of Pakistanis. They have done this regardless of religion, gender, and economic standing, relying primarily on the attributes of merit and access for all.

Q. Will AKU-EB cater only to the privileged classes?

A. No. As with all AKU related initiatives, access will be provided to all socio-economic strata of society. AKU-EB is made accessible to individuals with different income levels through a graduated fee system. The examination fee for students in schools with tuition fees of less than Rs 800 is Rs 1,500 per candidate and Rs 3,000 in other schools. By comparison, the fee for a reasonably comprehensive set of subjects at the 'O' level of the British boards is about Rs 26,000. Moreover, unlike the British boards, AKU-EB is national resource working through the national examination system and established for the benefit of the country.

Q. Why duplicate the existing examination board provision?

A. There is no duplication. The system adopted by public examination boards has encouraged memorisation and rote learning. The option provided by AKU-EB, on the other hand, emphasises comprehension and application of knowledge. Although both systems are based on the national curriculum and offer the same qualification, the nature of the examinations and the methods of education required to prepare students for the examinations will be different. Preparation of the students for the examinations of AKU-EB requires re-orientation of teachers and schools to this modern method which is used by most examinations systems including 'O' and 'A' levels. AKU-EB also analyses the candidates' responses to questions and passes on what it learns to schools and teachers. This feedback facilitates the strengthening of our education system.

Q. Will AKU-EB students gain acceptance from the wider academic community. Will they get admission in the local universities like Karachi University ?

A. Yes. By law the certification of students by AKU-EB will be accepted by all academic institutions. Section 7 of the AKU-EB Ordinance states: "All certification by the Examination Board shall be evidence of the successful completion by the holder thereof of the appropriate level of education and shall be accorded full credit and recognition."

Q. Why did the Government create examination boards in the private sector?

A . At present the Secondary School Certificates of the public sector examination boards are neither accepted overseas nor by many Pakistani universities. In order to make Pakistan competitive, it is imperative that its school graduates gain acceptance into reputed universities at home and abroad. The setting up of AKU-EB and the Askari Board, the other examination board in the private sector, is thus a logical response by the Government of Pakistan as part and parcel of addressing quality in the Education Sector Reforms. AKU has a track record of being a role model in setting high standards in nursing, medical and teacher education that have been emulated in Pakistan and other Muslim and developing countries. Consequently, the Government of Pakistan encouraged AKU to establish an examination board that would act as a role model for others.

Q. Does AKU-EB set more difficult examinations?

A. AKU-EB is operating within the national scheme of studies. It would be unfair to its candidates if their efforts after higher quality of thought were rewarded with fewer marks, putting them at a disadvantage in the competition for college places. AKU-EB will monitor the rate of return on effort very closely. Candidates are asked to redirect their efforts towards more worthwhile learning. They are not penalized thereby and in the longer term it is expected that their greater understanding will give them a competitive edge. It is unfortunate that there are no explicit educational standards in Pakistan to support parity of outcome. Identifying and publishing what candidates know, understand and can do at each grade in each subject is the motive force for AKU-EB's adoption of the latest public examining technology, e-marking.

Q. How can AKU-EB claim that its results will be fairer and less open to corruption than those of the other boards?

A. AKU-EB is introducing e-marking to Pakistan , indeed the whole of South Asia . E-marking depends on very high speed scanners. The candidate's written answer paper is copied into a large computer where it is split up into segments relating to each question. These segments are then sent out to different desktop computers. The marker sitting at the screen sees the candidate's handwriting but no identification of the candidate. The electronic image cannot be tampered with. The marker assigns a mark for knowledge, an understanding and an application mark and passes on to the next candidate's answer to the same question. The marker does not know if what is presented is being marked for the first, second or third time but by presenting answers for re-evaluation the chief examiner is able to monitor each marker's work and call a halt if fatigue sets in. At the end, the computer adds up the marks assigned by several different markers to the same paper. There are no arithmetic errors and relatively little risk of an unfair outcome from a tired, depressed or angry examiner. The system is very transparent. A candidate who feels unfairly treated can ask his/her school to have his script made available along with its marks. A school is given get a blow by blow account of the strengths and weaknesses of its classes, an essential first step towards rectifying deficiencies and improving quality. Finally AKU-EB will be able to see where more thought needs to be given to the teaching syllabus to make it more accessible to all.

Q. What did you learn from the first practice examination?

A. A great deal. We examined the full range of objectives set out in the National Curriculum and found that many of these have been neglected in classrooms. Students do very well on questions that can be rote learned. But on questions that call for understanding, the success rate drops and when application of ideas and skills is involved, it drops even further. We have shared these outcomes, question by question, with our affiliated schools so that the quality of student performance is being improved.

Q. What shortcomings did you identify in the practice exams and how do you intend to address them?

A. The students were unaccustomed to this style of examining. They missed out multiple choice items where they were mot sure of the answer. They did not read questions carefully and their answers wandered off the point. Many were helped by answering on the paper in the space specified for the question, but for some this was very challenging. They had memorized the correct material, but had never thought about it. Even though we gave them plenty of time to think in the exam, they could not work out which parts of what they could remember were relevant to the question.

Q. What were the results?

A. We have shared details of their own students' performance with each affiliated school. For us the key feature was that although these were thought provoking examinations, in every paper we had some students scoring above 90 per cent. All the examinations could be attempted very successfully. The schools now face the challenge of bringing the many up to the standard of the few. We will be supporting them in that endeavor.

Q. Were any schools, parents and students disappointed?

A. In most of our schools which have been working to provide quality education, there were few surprises. Students who interact well in classroom discussions performed well on the examination.

Q. How do your results compare with those of the local boards?

A. There appears to be little uniformity in the standards of the existing boards so that is a difficult question to answer. The part wise examinations seem to produce higher overall marks than the composite examination, just as you would expect.

Q. Some schools, as well as parents, feel that if their children sit for exams of other Boards then their marks will be better and they will get admissions in reputable colleges, so what is the value of AKU-EB?

A. The AKU has a record of high standards schools except that there will be a higher level of demand on students but that preparing to meet these standards is a preparation for life.

Urdu Version