Students disrupt HSC exam

'Students' disrupt exam, harass teacher
Krachi, June 11: In yet another incident of growing hooliganism in educational institutions, students belonging to a political party on Wednesday not only disturbed a practical examination during the ongoing HSC annual examinations at a reputable college of the city, but also took away the answer scripts of the examinees.

The incident occurred at the Adamjee Govt Science College when some students of a group affiliated with a political party entered the physics laboratory where 20 students of Class XI were busy taking their practical examination. The intruders asked the Internal Examiner, Assistant Professor Ghulam Mustafa, to allow three other students to take their practical exam, even though they were not in possession of practical journals.

The internal examiner, according to college sources, told the students who were not in possession of journals that they could take their practical examination some other day, as the practical exams at the college would continue till June 29, but the students belonging to the student organisation insisted that since the three students belonged to their party, they must be allowed to take the practical exam on Wednesday, or else other students would not be allowed to take their practical exams either.

The internal examiner then refused to allow the three students to take the exam, saying that since the journal carried three marks, he would not be able to award the marks to those not possessing it, and neither would he be able to allow them to take the exam.

Under the rules, possession of a journal is mandatory for an examinee at a practical exam.

At this point the students became infuriated, misbehaved with the internal examiner and grabbed him by the collar.

As soon as the news reached other teachers of the college, a senior professor of the college, Prof Ather Hussain Mirza, who was busy conducting the physics practical examination of Class XII students in another lab of the college, rushed to rescue his colleague.

According to Prof Mirza, he told the students that production of a journal at the time of a practical exam was necessary and as such they could not appear in the examination that day. "Shortly afterward, the students who were insisting that those not in possession of journals be allowed to take their practical on Wednesday left the laboratory, but after some time another group of 15 to 20 students entered the laboratory and took away the answer scripts of the students who were busy taking their practical exam."

He said that teachers of the physics department of Adamjee Science College had decided not to conduct any further practical examinations until the chairman and the controller of examinations of the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi take some concrete measures to ensure that such unpleasant incidents did not take place again.

In a similar incident, a group of students belonging to another political party had torn up the answer scripts of examinees on Monday when they were taking their MBBS First Professional (Part A) and LLB (Part-I) examinations at the University of Karachi on Monday. Karachi University had later rescheduled the papers, which will now be held on June 27 at the same time and centre as earlier. Dawn