ISLAMABAD, Sept 2 (NNI): Parents of Cambridge have said that retakes are not acceptable at all. The parents and students demand revised grades which will eventually be the solution to all the problems.
Parents in a statement said they have requested Cambridge to schedule the 9-11 May cancelled exams at a later date but they refused.
They complained that Cambridge failed the students in Pakistan by what they called the “unjust grading and assessed grades”.
They disagreed with the suggestion the students sit for retakes.
“Why didn’t they listen to the parents earlier when they requested to reschedule the cancelled exams,” they asked.
Parents pointed out that the government has proposed the schools to pay 80 percent for the rechecks to which they are not agreeing.
“Nearly 45000 Pakistani students have been affected by the unjust grading by Cambridge,” a parent said.
The exams components that were cancelled have been marked Us and Es and those not cancelled have been marked the same way too, she said.
“Students with straight A*s and As in O’Level and School Assessed Grades have been given straight Ds, Es and Us in A Levels.”
Parents were of the view that students already on gap years will have to go through another gap year, adding retake in not the solution at all because parents can’t afford such huge sums of Cambridge fee again.
Since retakes are a month away, it is impossible for the students to cover two years of syllabus in one month which will eventually lead to worse grades.
They said rechecks will cost around 1.5 lac per subject as every subject has 4-5 components and schools aren’t cooperating at all and not following the 80/20 policy.
“We don’t want to give exams again, which already we have given with full preparations,” parents said and demanded that grades should be revised with low threshold and transcript grades should be awarded.
Parents complained that Cambridge gave unfair grading overall subjects due to the 9th May incident.
Students and parents met Education Minister and Deputy Chairman Senate,
The prime minister also told the Education Minister to solve this issue, but still no one is taking any action.
Secretary Education intervened and then he decided to take retakes again in Oct/Nov.
“If they wanted retakes they should have done it in May/June after giving the result they are saying they will retake again.”
Parents said retakes are not an option as many students are going abroad and many have started their universities in Oct. NNI
