KarachiBoth Sindh exam board chairmen resigned after a provincial probe named them in irregularities.
The Pakistan Karachi board chairman altered 170 exam centres mid-matric, the probe found; Hyderabad cycled through 6 chairmen in 30 months.
The Hyderabad resignation has not been accepted pending ministerial action.
Sources: Dawn
WHY EXAM BOARDS MATTER
In Pakistan, the matric (Class 10) and intermediate (Class 12) certificates issued by provincial boards are the gatekeepers to every public university seat, civil-service exam, and overseas student visa. Whoever controls the boards controls who advances — making the chairmanship one of the most politically valuable appointments in provincial government.
THE CENTRE ECONOMY
Each examination centre is a school designated to host candidates from other schools. Centre allocation is the single most lucrative lever a chairman holds: a 'soft' centre — lax invigilation, friendly staff, photocopies passed in — can be sold to coaching academies and private schools for millions of rupees per session. Altering 170 centres mid-cycle is not administrative housekeeping; it is the market clearing.
THE SINDH PATRONAGE MACHINE
Sindh has been governed continuously by the Pakistan Peoples Party since 2008 — the longest single-party provincial run in Pakistan's history. Education board chairmanships, like district police postings and irrigation department slots, function as currency in the PPP's internal patronage system rather than as merit appointments. Six chairmen in thirty months at Hyderabad reflects faction-rotation, not reform.
WHY HYDERABAD KEEPS CHURNING
Hyderabad sits at the fault line between PPP's rural Sindhi base and the MQM's urban Mohajir constituency. The board's chairmanship is contested between factions whose patrons want their own networks placed before each exam season — producing the rotation pattern the probe documented.
THE LEAKED-PAPER MARKET
Question papers in Sindh have leaked so reliably for so long that a parallel market prices them by subject the night before each paper. Mathematics and English carry the highest premiums; Islamiat the lowest. The leak is upstream of the centre — printing presses, courier routes, and board secretariats — which is why centre-level reform alone never closes it.
THE STRUCTURAL FIX NOBODY WANTS
Punjab moved its matric to a centralised digital question bank with randomised paper assembly in 2022; leak rates fell sharply. Sindh has resisted the same reform because randomisation eliminates the centre economy that funds the patronage above it. The probe names individuals; the system that produced them is the unmentioned variable.