Till now, things have been very unfair to all A-Level students. Of course, it’s fall season which means that Universities and Colleges are open for new admissions. This is exactly when equivalence criteria for A level students became a serious problem.
All that is needed is “fair comparability” of the exam results between different boards in Pakistan but unfortunately, students under the British System were not given this fair set of rules for equivalence. Let’s take Pakistan’s System of Education as an example. If a student scores 80 percent marks in the Federal board, most probably, the equivalent score from an examination board in another area would be A LOT different from that. This ultimately affects the student’s fate because he/she might face a lot of issues regarding admissions in a university program.
However, the group that actually gets affected the most by this unfair comparability of exam results is the students that take GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ level, International Baccalaureate, etc. If you’ve just passed your A-Level and want to take admission to your favorite university, say in Mechanical Engineering, then you do qualify for equivalence. To be able to apply for university degrees, it is required that you must get your Cambridge grades converted through Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) according to the Pakistani education system. This conversion for equivalence will help you apply for further studies.
Rules For Equivalence
According to the present regulations, if you’ve passed your Cambridge exams with an A*, then you’re gonna get 90% marks. As you go 10 percent down, the subsequent grades are lowered. So at 80%, you get an A - at 70%, you get a B, and so on…
The Real Issue With Equivalence Criteria for A-Level Students
Even if you’ve scored straight A*s in your A-Level, your equivalent score according to Pakistan’s education system would be no more than 90%. Yes, NO MORE THAN 90%.
This is the best score A-Level students could get but at this score, they wouldn’t get benefits that Intermediate students with 90+ percentage would. What would happen to the students who deserved the seats for MBBS or BDS that require, say 93% marks? They won’t be admitted to any of their desired medical education institutions.
To make sure they don’t have to go through this humiliation, instead of going for A-Level, O-Level students switch to the local education system; Intermediate. This is extremely sad since this compels us to tell children and their parents to leave a better education system for a lesser one just so the children could get admitted to their favorite institution under their favorite faculty.
The Solution?
We all know the favorite of all students since the 2020 pandemic till present, Shafqat Mehmood, the Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training in Pakistan. Recently, we saw in his tweet that he has finally brought a permanent change in the equivalence criteria for A-Level students and this is surely a piece of great news for everyone attempting their Cambridge exams.
Shafqat Mehmood tweeted that in partnership with IBCC, he resolves this issue of A* equivalence criteria for Pakistani Nationals: both O and A Level students. Now that if you get an A*, it will not be capped at 90%. This ultimately means that there will be no more unfair comparability.
Check out the tweet yourself:
This was definitely an eye-opener for all the students of Pakistan because now, they can actually choose A-Level after clearing their O-Level, ace their exams with A*s, and still get a fair equivalence score.
The reaction to this tweet was so on point!
You can also see some people being a little… sarcastic:
And then there’s this legend. xD
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