THE Khyber Pukhtulchwa Elementary and Secondary E ducation Department has Boated theidea ofconductinga central examination for Grade-V and Grade-VIH students of all schools in the province through a testing agency. The students will be promoted to the next class only when they pass the said test. This test will be mandatory for all the students.
The practice oftaking a centralised and uniform examination is a vague idea in the light of different educational standards in public and private sectors. In private schools, mostly foreign books of Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press are taught. Their medium of instruction is English.
In government-run schools, textbooks recommended by the KP Textbook Board are used. The medium of instruction is Urdu or Pashto in these schools. Thus, there is a wide gap in education standards between the two sectors. It is evident that every year the toppers in the HSC and HSSC come from private schools. The students of government-run schools hardly shine.
The KP government will do better if it first introduces some structural changes in the education sector before introducing a uniform test for all schools. The gap between education standards in public and private schools must be eliminated first.
