Pakistani students have been raising their voices against taking O and A levels exams in-person. According to Cambridge’s official site, CIE exams will be held in June 2021. Students believe that holding exams is unfair after a very difficult school year. They have joined hands in a nationwide call to protest against the Cambridge Assessment International Education Board (CIE) and Pakistan’s Ministry for Education. Pakistani students have faced various academic challenges that have affected their learning capability for exams. Apart from the pandemic situation and ineffective online classes, students’ mental health has also been affected a lot.
CIE Exams Increase Mental Stress For Students
According to the reports Cambridge canceled in-person exams for around 10 countries including the UK, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brazil. Pakistani students have been also urging the authority to consider canceling the CIE exams over there as well. They are well aware that the online classes were only good for memes and did not help students to cover the syllabus in time.
Most countries have promoted the students based on expected grades and Pakistani students have been feeling left out. It hurts them that their health and safety are not a concern for authority, which is relying on SOP protocols and expecting people to follow them.
Protest Against In-Person Exams
Students have also been engaging in active protest to demand the cancellation of CIE exams. The standard of educational institutions has been extremely poor during the COVID crises. Due to an unstable schedule, schools failed to deliver a complete curriculum this year. Many students were struggling with the studies due to the spread of the virus in their families. Overall, there was no environment for students to study and prepare for the exams in peace.
Students of University of Central Punjab (UCP) also organized a protest against the on-campus exams, that went horribly wrong.
Nothing Is Normal
The candidates for the upcoming exams have said if learning was not the same anymore then exams shouldn’t have been the same as well. The traditional method of taking exams is likely to risk the health and safety of students and their families. It is cruel of authorities to expect students to perform in exams while educational and government institutions have been underperforming badly.
The pandemic has once again exposed the uneven distribution of resources in Pakistan. Moreover, it also highlighted how authorities abuse their power without caring about how many lives they would affect drastically.
