ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Education, Professional Training and National Heritage Shafqat Mahmood on Tuesday launched an E-portal/mobile phone application of Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) for equivalence. Secretary IBCC, Dr Ghulam Ali Mallah briefed the minister on the utility and benefits of the application.

While addressing the ceremony, the minister said that IBCC was following the directions of the prime minister by introducing transparency, ease of doing business and customer facilitation.

According to the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, launch of such an application is not only a revolutionary step but also, a signature project of Ministry of Education which intends to minimise the problems of the public and will increase their accessibility to the IBCC. He said that before digitalization, applicants used to face many problems i.e., they had to stand in queues for hours to deposit fees and payment of IBCC to fulfill the condition of being physically present that too, in its limited branches. Furthermore, courier service was not available and applicants had to travel miles to come to the office of IBCC to get equivalence certificates, he added.

This application enable the applicants to apply online for equivalence certificates and also allows them to deposit their fee online from IBCC Mobile App through OTC, Digital Wallet payments from any financial institution through credit & debit cards (local & international) as IBCC has integrated digital payment solutions in the said application.

Shafqat Mahmood said that the overseas Pakistanis were our assets and the said application would be helpful for them. For the ease of the applicants, the courier service had been integrated so that applicants could track their applications in real-time, he added. They will be updated throughout the processing of their application.

He was of the view that the same changes were to be made in every department for the ease of the public. Furthermore, he congratulated all the stakeholders, especially the Secretary IBCC for facilitating the public by using the latest technology.

Secretary Ministry of Education Farah Hamid Khan, Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Education Wajiha Qamar, Additional Secretary Ministry of Education, Mohyuddin Ahmed Wani and other officials were also present.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021