Background

In 1995, 16 private schools in Pakistan wrote to Aga Khan University (AKU) to express their concern about deteriorating standards of secondary education and identified the current examination system as a major cause. They further requested AKU, being “an established educational institution of high repute in the country… to set up an examination board for holding the matric examination and awarding the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) certificates.”[1]

At first the University was reluctant to undertake such a school based activity, preferring to concentrate on higher education. However, following persistent requests of this type from several quarters, consultations with schools, students, educationists and policymakers confirmed that a critical weakness of Pakistan’s education system was its examination methodology which is designed primarily as a test of memory based on a single textbook. Combined with the need for high scores to pursue advanced education, this mode of examinations promotes rote learning in schools at the expense of comprehension of concepts and application of knowledge.

The poor quality of examinations has been documented in at least thirty five government reports between 1959 and 1993. One such report [2] stated that rote learning is reinforced by the “pattern of question papers” which in turn “defeats the basic targets of education which are acquisition, understanding and application of knowledge”.  These reports also highlight the erosion of the credibility of examination results due to “large scale and unhampered cheating”.

Within Pakistan good public and private universities are increasingly using their own entrance tests to supplement or replace results from the current examination boards, while Pakistani school qualifications enjoy very little international recognition or repute. The result, as is well known, has been the rapid growth of the Cambridge ‘O’ and ‘A’ level system run from the UK.  Although these examinations are generally reliable, they are very expensive and are based on a foreign curriculum.

In response to the concerns outlined above, the University's Board of Trustees in 1998, appointed a task force to assess the feasibility of an alternative examination system. The membership of the task force included representation from schools using existing public Board examinations as well as national consultants who provided insights into Government policies and national curricula [3]. In 1999 the group recommended to AKU Board of Trustees (BOT) the creation of an examination service as a function of the University, with its main objective being to improve the quality of education in schools throughout Pakistan .

In 2000, AKU-BOT approved the recommendation of the task force, subject to approval of the Government of Pakistan, and emphasised the principal aim as being to offer high quality public examinations using modern methods of assessment to test achievement within the national curriculum so as to “have a significant impact on the quality of education [4]”. Thereafter, with the encouragement of the Government of Pakistan, the University applied for recognition of AKU-EB and was granted the same in November 2002 through Ordinance CXIV of 2002.  A copy of this Ordinance is attached to this note. [Click here to read the Ordinance]

AKU-EB from the beginning was envisaged as a small undertaking which would be able to serve as a role model. In this respect it would play the same role as the University's School of Nursing and Medical College , both of which, while remaining small, are generally recognised to have had a major and wholly positive impact in their respective fields.

The concept of an examination board under the auspices of AKU was developed at least four years before funding sources of $7.3M for the programme were identified. With the approval of the Board of Trustees in 1999, the University committed to invest a portion of these funds from its own resources. With the assistance of the Government, funding possibilities were then explored with various international development agencies, including the Asian Development Bank, the UK 's DfID, the EU and Germany 's DEG, but without success. USAID was considered as a potential funding source at the point when the Government of Pakistan was entering into an agreement with the USA in 2002 by which the latter would provide support for the Government's Educational Sector Reforms throughout Pakistan . Following extensive dialogue with the Government, USAID, with the concurrence of the Government, granted Rs 270M (US$ 4.5M) in August 2003 toward the initial operational cost of AKU-EB. This is two thirds of the total project cost of Rs 438M (US$ 7.3M), with the remaining cost of Rs 168M (US$ 2.8M) being borne by the University.  After the initial start-up period of five years, the University expects to become solely responsible for AKU-EB's financial affairs.

Implementation of the project began in 2003 with the appointment of the first Director and staff of AKU-EB. It was not, however, until early 2004 that statements appeared in the press that claimed that all public examination boards were to come under the control of AKU-EB.  The University's stance has always been clear in that it neither had any interest in, nor the capacity to pursue such an endeavour, and furthermore for which it did not in any event, have the authority. Its objectives, as set out above , would be fully served by the establishment of an examination board in the private sector. The establishment of another private board, the Askari Board, has already been announced. This and other points of concern were explained to leaders of certain political parties in June 2004 when they were also assured of AKU's objectives.

[1] Letter dated 25 June, 1995 signed by 16 private schools accompanying a paper on the standard of secondary education in the country.

[2] Commission for Evaluation of Examination System and Eradication of Malpractices, 1992. (Chair: M.N. Nur), Department of Education, Government of Punjab, Lahore.

[3] The two national consultants on the task force were: 1) Dr. Parween Hasan, former Director, Educational Research, Board of Secondary Education, Karachi; and 2) Mr. Abul Quasim Sheikh, former Deputy Director (Curriculum), Bureau of Curriculum and Extension Wing, Sindh.

[4] Extract of minutes of the November 2001 meeting of the Aga Khan University Board of Trustees.