Sunday, November 30, 2008 By Farooq Baloch Karachi
The declining standards of local examination boards and their eroding credibility over the years have resulted in parallel examination systems from private sector. While the successive governments failed to deliver, the private sector jumped in local market, which made hundred of schools to get affiliated with it owing to its improved standards.
Aga Khan University Examination Board (AKU-EB), a federal examination board, best defines the role that private sector can play in improving the standards of education especially the examination process. Established in August 2003, the AKU-EB, a reputable examination board, has now taken over 200 schools across Pakistan and 60 schools in Karachi including some of the premier schools.
Talking about how the AKU-EB is different, Karima Kara, Associate Director AKU-EB said, “We not only test the national curriculum but we also enrich it.” While explaining she said, “The AKU-EB’s examination syllabuses include Specific Learning Objectives (SLO) with cognitive levels, scheme of assessments, teaching strategies, command words and their definitions. These documents help to regulate and standardise teaching activities.” “We have also linked the syllabus of classes IX and X with classes XI and XII,” she continued, adding, “The current examinations report only total scores. There is no feedback on what went well and what didn’t. The AKU-EB utilises state-of-the-art public examination practices. Through the introduction of the e-marking technology it 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.”
Ismailimail 