Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor on Sunday expressing serious concern over the result tempering scam in the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) and demanded of the authorities concerned to purge blacksheep from the city board.

In a statement, the PDP chief said that the authorities should come forward with concret measures to sack corrupt officers of the Board and ensure installing of a result tempering proof system to save educational future of students of the megacity.

Mr Shakoor said the recent tempered results of the BIEK had sparked protests of students who said that they were given less numbers and many of them were deliberately failed. The PDP chief said that the Sindh government had sacked BIEK Chairman Ameer Qadri on pretext of a foreign tour without government permission but it was not the whole story.

He alleged that a corrupt mafia working in educational boards of Karachi for decades was not being caught because vested interests in the Sindh government protected it. He said that there was widespread corruption and mismanagement not only in the BIEK but also in the Matriculation Board, where the vested interests changed the results of students and favoured their own candidates.

He asked: “Why only the students of Karachi boards are being targeted by these mafias while there is no such complaint from other educational boards in the province or country.” He said the provincial government seemed to be directly patronising the corruption mafias in the educational boards of the megacity.

Shakoor demanded a complete overhauling of examination systems in our country to ensure transparency and fair play. He said objective type examination systems should be preferred to ensure better transparency. He said modern AI tools should be incorporated into examination and scripts checking methods. He said the examination models of Japan and Singapore should be studied and replicated in our country.

The PDP chief said that permanent officers with well reputation should be posted in Karachi boards instead of officers on acting charge. He said PDP had always highlighted mismanagement in educational entities of Karachi and provided legal help to the affected students. He said the PDP would continue to play this role in future also.