THE Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Bannu has been functioning without a chairman for the last several months, and the charge has temporarily been assigned to the local commissioner. This shows the apathy of the provincial government towards such a serious matter.

It has failed to find a single competent person from among hundreds of qualified, upright and experienced people working in institutions of higher education.

Maybe the government is deliberately ignoring the significance of education in the province. Who knows? The commissioner is already engaged in handling complicated matters of the entire division comprising three crisisridden districts of Bannu, Lakki Marwat and North Waziristan. With so much on his plate, how can he deal with the crucial issues, including the conduct of board examinations and their supervision, maintaining merit and transparency in the assessment and tabulation of answer sheets, and announcement of results on time? All these affairs need a dynamic person to act efficiently and with undiluted focus.

Established in 1990, the board was functioning properly till it faced a serious challenge in September last year when around 15,000 candidates failed the intermediate exam, and another 10,000 failed the matriculation exam, triggering a massive outcry. Since then, the board has been functioning without a regular chairman, affecting its day-to-day management.

The provincial government needs to appoint a chairman of the board in order to not only mitigate hardships of the students, but also identify and purge it of those who are bent upon distorting its past record.

Aryan Khan LakkiMarwat