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Harassment at UoP: Powers of internal examiners being cut

By Mohammad Ashfaq

PESHAWAR: The University of Peshawar decided to reduce the powers of internal examiners to effectively tackle the issues of harassment and exploitation of students, official sources said.

They said that the decision was taken after the issue of harassment of girl students of the university surfaced few months ago. The issue was also raised in the provincial assembly by a woman MPA.

“In the wake of alleged harassment of girl students by their teachers, senior professors suggested to the university administrations to curtail powers of internal examiners of four-year Bachelor of Science (BS) programme,” sources said.

They said that the university administration decided to establish a separate body to conduct examinations of the students of BS programme.

A new post of controller examinations and other supporting staff would be created to conduct the examinations, sources added.

The university started BS programme in 2009 in 25 different departments while it had already been launched in four departments including Micro Biology, Environmental Sciences, Pharmacy and Fine Arts. Presently 2,500 students were enrolled in the BS programme, sources said.

“The chances of harassment and exploitation will be decreased with reduction in powers of internal examiners,” they said.

Currently the entire evaluations of the students are conducted by their internal examiners as they have the powers of 100 per cent marking.

The internal examiners set papers and also check answer sheets of students after examinations.

“In the existing system of examination, there are many chances of exploitation and harassment as the internal teacher of a subject has all marks in hands,” sources said.

They added that a student having good relations with the teacher could get high marks while a competent and bright student could not shine in the examinations if he had bad relations with his examiner.

The students having good relations with their examiners could get marks without even submitting their thesis, they said.

Now examinations would be conducted in a centralised manner wherein 70 per cent evaluation would done by the external examiners and 30 per cent by the internal examiners, sources added.

Source: Dawn

Date:7/11/2011