Parents demand mock tests to prepare students for board assessments
Parents have demanded the concerned authorities to conduct pre-board examinations to prepare the students for the final board assessments.
The parents, worried about the future of their children whose admissions in medical and engineering institutes depend on their marks in intermediate and Alevels, are calling on the authorities to hold pre-board tests which serve chiefly as practice for the final assessments conducted by the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education. The parents are concerned about how their college-going children will perform in the intended board exams while they have not gone through proper testing and assessment as such in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Who will help them understand the nature of questions and the way to respond to those questions,” the parents asked, while terming it important that the students should go through at least one week of practice exams in their colleges.
All the stakeholders especially parents are wonderstruck over the question of examinations without any prior preparation.
The students have suffered an unprecedented academic loss due to the uncertain situation amid the pandemic.
It is also questionable how the students will come up to the expectations of the examining bodies i.e. school boards. Students will be able to assess their performance in the pre-board exams and will build new strategies and put more efforts to bring good grades, a student told Associated Press of Pakistan.
Hence pre-board exams provide students with a very true picture of how they are doing in their classes, she said.
An associate professor said: “Entering the examination hall, finding roll number on the exam desk and taking a seat with an answering script and facing an unfamiliar question paper is a nerveracking experience for many students.
She pointed out that rigorous training is required before the students sit in the exams. Multiple exams are required though yet at least one pre-board exam is direly needed at the earliest.
If students are not made to go through this process, the entire board exam shall remain detrimental to the aims of education, she added.
Having parent-teacher contact is almost impossible in the given circumstances. The only answer to the question of exams is a pre-board exam with a greater focus on familiarising students with the paper pattern and expectations of examiners in the board exams, said a parent.
She went on to say that science education is not theory but practical knowledge. I earnestly request the concerned authorities to arrange a preboard exam before any board exams.
When contacted, a senior official of the Federal Directorate of Education said since the educational institutions are reopening, the directorate is making a strategy to conduct pre-board exams of the students.