Many a `star` performer in Class-V, VIII exams

LAHORE, March 31: The Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) on Thursday declared the results of province-wide uniform examination of Grade-VIII students while downgrading pass percentage from 33 per cent to 25 per cent besides promoting hundreds of students with a "star" mark, who failed in any one of seven subjects. In Grade-V examination, the PEC top officials said, the pass benchmark was kept at 33 per cent, however, students failing in any one of the five subjects were promoted with a "star" mark. According to the results statistics, as many as 1.471 million students were registered for the Grade-V examination while 1.420 million appeared for the exam. Some 51,783 students did not appear for the examination. As much as 89.24 per cent candidates passed the examination including those failed in any one of the five subjects. For Grade-VIII exam, the PEC had registered 1.059 million students and out of them as many as 1.034 million took the exam. Some 24,442 students did not appear for the examination. Of those appeared, 83.93 per cent students were declared pass (according to 25 per cent pass percentage benchmark) including those who failed in any one of the seven subjects. When contacted, PEC chief executive officer Naseem Nawaz said the commission had declared the district-wise results and no overall top positions were declared. PEC operation manager Iqbal Ahmad Awan said the commission had identified position holders at respective districts level. Lahore executive district officer (education) Pervaiz Akhtar said his examination branch officials had themselves identified the position holders overall as well as gender-wise as no such data was communicated by the PEC. He said the EDO office also faced pressure from students and their parents because the PEC uploaded the results in the afternoon. It may be mentioned that the Grade-V and VIII results were again removed from the website at around 10pm. In Lahore district, the pass percentage in Grade-V examination stood at 90.74 per cent and 83.96 per cent in Grade-VIII. According to the overall positions in Grade-V in Lahore, Nimra Khalid of Khairunnisa Girls High School stood first with 533 marks out of 600. The second position was shared by four students by obtaining 529 marks each. Of four second position holders three students – Bushra Majeed, Fizza Javed, Amina Farooq are from Khairunnisa Girls High School and Muhammad Arqam Ghaffar belongs to St. Anthony School. The third position was bagged by Farah Arif of Convent of Jesus and Mary with 527 marks. In Grade-VIII exam, the overall first position was bagged by Ifrah Irshad of Crescent Model High School with 746 marks out of 800. The second and third positions were secured by Divisional Public School's Fizza Ali and Muhammad Ali Akhtar with 730 and 729 marks, respectively. A number of students complained that they had been given quite less marks as they were expecting higher scores on the basis of their performance in the examination.