KARACHI: Although they solved the questions in their answer books in dim classrooms without electricity in hot and humid weather of Karachi, they are still part of some good work expected to lead to progress in the way board examinations are conducted in Sindh.

The Standardised Achievement Test (SAT) of the Sindh government education and literacy department held in collaboration with IBA Sukkur for students of class five and eight under way this week in Karachi and Shaheed Benazirabad is not just about testing learning outcomes of students before they start high school or matriculation. Looking at the way these tests are conducted, they can serve as a model for matriculation and intermediate exams, so notorious for cheating among candidates.

SAT seems cheating-proof. Two students sit side-by-side in the examination hall. One has been given paper version ‘A’ and the other has ‘B’.

“Yes, there are two different versions for the same competency level so that a student wouldn’t bother glancing over at his or her neighbour’s work to check what he or she is writing,” said Dr Fida Hussain, project director of IBA Sukkur.

IBA Sukkur has a contract with the government of Sindh to set and conduct these tests.

The three-hour duration paper is more a three-in-one test with mathematics, science and language questions. The language questions can be Urdu, English or Sindhi depending on the medium of instruction at the student’s school. “We have broken down the paper into three parts, allowing 45 minutes each for maths and science and 50 minutes for solving the language questions with 10-minute intervals in between each subject. And before starting, we take an extra 10 minutes to explain to candidates how to solve the questions since they are not really used to the style,” Dr Hussain said.

There are hardly any fill in the blanks but more multiple choice questions. “Fill in the blanks and multiple choice are both considered as objective questions but fill in the blanks are no longer considered very authentic internationally, so we decided to follow the trend just to keep up with the international standards,” Dr Hussain added.

At the schools where the tests are conducted, the IBA Sukkur teams are given control of a complete block where the students take the tests. On Friday, there was no power in the block reserved for taking the tests at Church Mission High School for Boys but things went on smoothly. “In Karachi and Shaheed Benazirabad, the tests are being conducted from March 2 to 12,” said Zamir Khan of the Sindh government Reform Support Unit.

Earlier, these tests were also held in Sukkur and Larkana (Feb 8 to 18) and Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas (Feb 19 to March 1).

Replying to a question about whether there were more versions of tests for every city and for each day as students who had already taken the tests might leak the questions, Mr Khan shook his head. “These are conceptual and analytical questions. The answers, too, would be very different from each other as everyone is an individual after all. So there is no chance of cheating here,” he pointed out while adding that the tests, in their fourth year now, were also a kind of experiment that might serve as a model for board exams for higher levels in the future.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2016