“Some personal problems made me give up my college to become a private
candidate. But now I think studying for five to six hours on your own can
achieve results, too,” said Wirasa Aslam, who stood first with 844 out of 1,100
marks and an ‘A’ grade in the annual Board of Intermediate Education Karachi
(BIEK) class XII commerce (private group) exams here on Thursday.
“But this doesn’t mean that colleges are not important. I understand that the
student might have some issues preventing her from attending regular classes,
but may be if she didn’t have any problem and studied in college, she could have
earned an ‘A-1’ grade instead of just ‘A’,” said BIEK chairman Prof Anwar Ahmed
Zai at the ceremony held to announce the position holders and results.
More on the subject of colleges, Prof Zai said that more and more students today
were opting for commerce subjects due to which BIEK had to increase its staff
that handled getting their results, etc, ready. “But, unfortunately, the
government colleges aren’t realising this need to increase their faculty
according to the popularity of the subject. That is why while for pre-medical
and pre-engineering the best results are achieved by government colleges, for
commerce it is the private colleges that show top results,” he said.
Criticising the Centralized Admission Policy (CAP) to even not have their lists
ready leave alone admissions to colleges, he said: “Starting the course late
would surely hurt students’ studies.”
Meanwhile, BIEK’s Controller of Examinations Mohammad Imran Khan Chishti showed
his frustration at not being provided with the contact numbers of the private
candidates. “Either they don’t share their correct contact information with us
or their numbers have changed,” he said, adding that BIEK could only reach one
private candidate, Wirasa Aslam, who is also the one who stood first. She is
followed by Kanwal Nawazish (824/1,100 marks) in the second position and Ruba
Shafiq (812/1,100 marks) in third.
In the regular students, Aashish Kumar of the Institute of Business Education
stood first with 930 out of 1,100 marks with an ‘A-1’ grade and an 84.55
percentage. “I had heard all kinds of stories about the falling standards of
government colleges so opted for a private institution,” said Aashish who wants
to become a chartered accountant.
Malika Akber, who stood second with 928 marks with an ‘A-1’ grade and 84.36
percentage and who also hails from Institute of Business Education, was of the
view that private colleges provided more focus on the subject at hand. “I didn’t
even have to spread myself too thin by taking tuitions,” she said.
Kiran Jabeen was third with 921 marks, an ‘A-1’ grade with an 83.73 percentage,
and hails from a government college, Khursheed Government Girls College, Shah
Faisal Colony. She said she did take tuitions to make up for what she missed in
college. “Well, yes, I needed extra guidance to complete my course and as there
was about 50 per cent attendance in my college and I missed a lot of days as
well. But, I’m happy with my result,” she beamed.