In a press conference on Tuesday, the Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood announced that the education ministry has digitized the process of obtaining equivalences in collaboration with local and international stakeholders.
He announced that the government has developed an e-portal for the Inter Board Committee of Chairman (IBCC) along with an app, which would make the process of obtaining equivalence and attestation easier for the students.
He said that the students will now be able to receive their equivalence certificates at their doorsteps and in the near future, even that would be done away with as they will be able to simply download the PDF from the website.
It is worth mentioning that the IBCC is an institution that issues equivalence certificates for international board exams like Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIES), International Baccalaureate Programmes, religious degrees to name a few.
Addressing a ceremony in Islamabad, the minister said everything from the submission of payment challan to documents had now been digitized and students would be able to track their application status.
“Previously students used to face extreme difficulty, carrying their original documents to the IBCC office, then queueing up for hours for their turn before making it to banks to submit challans,” Mahmood said.
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He said that the students don’t need to go to offices, but the physical system would be running parallel to the online in case the need arises.
Minister for Education and Professional Training @Shafqat_Mahmood addresses launching of IBCC E portal and Mobile APP for Equivalence #APPNews https://t.co/j10BkQsTlZ
— APP (@appcsocialmedia) July 6, 2021
The minister said this is a “revolutionary change” in the right direction, and it is the will of the government to make decisions that ease the processes for the people.
It is worth mentioning that currently, the process of obtaining equivalence is quite cumbersome as the minister mentioned. It involved standing in long queues outside government offices, getting documents attested, paying fees at NBP branches, and then again standing in queues to submit the paperwork. This was very tiring and confusing for students, who are unaware of the government procedures.
What was more frustrating as the minister mentioned was that due to the IBCC sending documents to their main branch in main cities like Islamabad, the documents were easier to be manhandled and even got lost and compromised.
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