Action against guess papers, tuition centres in Punjab

Govt keen to ban guess papers, tuition centres
Lahore, Sep 02: The Punjab government is seeking help of the Law Department and Intelligence agencies to take action against publishers of guide books, guess papers and runners of tuition centres in the province, sources in the Education Department said here Tuesday.

They revealed that a meeting in this regard was held at the Punjab Civil Secretariat on Saturday last, which was headed by Rana Muhammad Afzal, chairman committee on guide books and guess papers. The committee was formed by Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif. The meeting was attended by Secretary Law, Secretary Higher Education and Secretary Schools, DIG Special Branch, Chairman Textbook Board, principal of certain colleges and schools, all the stake-holders including President Urdu Bazaar, owners of tuition centres and two publishers of guess papers and guide books.

The sources disclosed that all the stakeholders had assured the committee members their cooperation for banning the publication of such material. An official of the Education Department said that there were eleven publishers of guide books and five of guess papers, who maintain that "it is a big business as every year around 2.2 million students of matriculation and 1.2 million of Intermediate get help from such help books."

When contacted Rana M Afzal said that the stake-holders were aware of the dire results of such publications and they had pledged to help the committee in this regard.

He said that the publication of key books, guess papers and guides was not only harming the quality of education, but the publishers were also breaking into the examination system, to make their guess papers more and more invincible. Regarding tuition centres, Rana said, "The owners of academies believe that parents do not want their children waste time, as the schools did not remain open throughout the year, thus they send them to tuition centres."

"They also advocate that teachers belong to a low paid community and they cannot earn their bread depending only upon their salaries," he said and added, "They have also maintained that learning more and more is the basic right of a student." The matter would be examined thoroughly and it would take time, Rana concluded. The nation