Though the Punjab government has set a precedent while declaring free education up to matriculation, the Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISEs) of the province are following the practice of enhancing exam fees disproportionately, thus depriving a major chunk of the poor segment of the society the facility of higher studies.
The Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education have been conducting various tiers of examinations, right from class VIII to Intermediate, and charging fees from the students appearing in the examinations, which vary for each exam and fetch from every student amounting to thousands of rupees.
The provincial government has also allocated a sum of Rs 21 billion over a period of three years for meeting the missing facilities in the educational institutions in the province besides doubling the budget for education sector.
The government has been collecting Iqra Surcharge in the name of education cess since the era of Zia-ul-Haq fetching billions of rupees to the exchequer.
However, it would be quite pertinent to say that the present political regime should announce abolition or, at least, reduce the fee structure of Boards examination fee, to save the future of poor students.
Various civil societies, parents and teachers organisations have also urged the government to take a revolutionary step in this regard to go down in the annals of history and like its earlier move announce to abolish or diminish the Boards exam fee.