AKU-EB Students Perform Better In University Entrance Tests As Compared To Other Examination Boards

Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE) recently conducted a study to evaluate the quality of examinations and results of different examination boards/ institutions at Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) level in Pakistan. Students results at HSSC examinations and on university entrance tests were compared to determine the link between achievement and preparation at HSSC level and students performance of entry tests for Universities. 

The data​ compared 46,276 students’ entry test results held in 2016 in ten different universities across Pakistan with their respective HSSC scores (belonging to 26 different examination boards). 

Students from AKU-EB were found to have the highest correlation between their HSSC and entrance test scores indicating the validity, reliability and credibility of AKU-EB results. That is, the higher a student achieves on AKU-EB examinations the more likely they are to perform better on university entrance examinations. 

Students’ HSSC scores on AKU-EB examinations predicted 46.2% of their achievement on university entrance tests. The HSSC scores of the other two nation-wide examination boards, CIE and FBISE, predicted 37.7% and 31.9% of the university entrance scores respectively. While, the predictive value of the nine examination boards in Punjab ranged from 43.8% to 24.6%, five in Sindh from 29.4% to 5.4% and eight in KPK from 5.2% to 0.005%.   This indicates that AKU-EB syllabi effectively contribute towards preparedness for higher education, and at the same time its marking of exam papers is error free.