NCOC Announcement: The Education Minister, Shafqat Mahmood has made a monumental announcement. All exams have been suspended till June 15, 2021. These include all board exams for classes 9-12, and also O/A levels exams. He said that O/A levels will now happen in the OCT OV cycle and special arrangements will be made for A2 students that still want to give exams for international admissions.
We won!!!!
All O and A Level exams cancelled in Pakistan. Students will appear in Oct ov session.
No exams for matric, inter and FSC students at least until June 2021.
الْحَمْدُ للّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ
— Wajahat Kazmi (@KazmiWajahat) April 27, 2021
What this means for university admissions: The Education Minister made it clear that it is now the final decision to postpone all exams mentioned till the 15th of June. He said specially arrangements will be made for students to get admission in Pakistani universities in the January cycle instead of September. It was said that exams may be even pushed further, but no comment was made on the automatic promotion of students like last year.
What this means for A2 students: Those A2 students who wish to get admission in Pakistani universities will have special admission arrangements made for admission in January 2022. However, those who have applied to universities abroad, or those who wish to get admission in the fall semesters can still give exams in this session with extra precautions, and limited number of people in exam halls.
Yes the exams needed to be cancelled and that is huge relief but how have you given up on pursuing SAGs @Shafqat_Mahmood or you don't want anyone talking about it? The mess you've created with this decision is unprecedented. The Covid signs were always there before 17th April.
— M. Jibran Nasir (@MJibranNasir) April 27, 2021
Student Reaction: A2 students are still furious as this decision does not do much for them. They argue that Teacher Assessed Grades should have been sent instead of this, because students who opt out of giving A2 exams right now will still be wasting a year.
For all the AS students who wanted to apply to foreign universities, now the time they should’ve spent studying for SAT/ACT, writing college essays and preparing their profiles will be spent studying for exams. Many O level and AS students who were planning to go to summer
— Usman (@usmanabbasiii) April 27, 2021