Only optional subjects exams to be taken, will be held after July 10, announces Shafqat Mehmood

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Shafqat Mahmood said that all decisions were taken by the inter-provincial education ministers meeting which emerged as an active body and all decisions were taken unanimously as to when the educational institutions would be closed and reopened.

He said that it was not easy for any government to close educational institutions. Decisions regarding educational institutions were taken in consultation with all the provinces while in case of an epidemic, the decision to reopen educational institutions was not easy.

"Most of our students are the ones who study in the last two and a half months before the exam. We have all been students, so everyone knows that when the exam was approaching, the study would start, not before," he said.

He said that the decisions of the four provinces and federal units were taken unanimously and jointly and therefore it was possible to make the right decisions in difficult situations.

Shafqat Mahmood said that it has been decided that exams must be taken this year.

The Education Minister announced that the 9th and 10th class examinations will be held in elective subjects and mathematics while the 11th and 12th class examinations will also be held in elective subjects only.

He further said that the examinations would now be held from July 10 instead of June 24, while the first would be Inter and then Matriculation papers.

The Minister of Education said that there are many reasons for not giving grades without examination, the biggest reason being that the most transparent test is for external examinations because otherwise there is bias, a teacher in a school gives marks more flexibly.

He said that people give the example of England but now news has come that parents have started suing because they object to the grades awarded by the school but people do not object to external examination.

The Education Minister said that the boards have also been asked to keep a breakdown amongst the examinations so that the children can have adequate time to prepare.