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Frequently Asked Questions

What is Punjab Examination Commission (PEC)? Top
Punjab Examination Commission is an autonomous body set up by the Government of the Punjab to conduct annual examination for grade 5 and 8 students.
For more details follow the link.
 
When does registration start? Top

The schedule for registration of students is usually announced every year after the summer break. There are three categories for registration depending on whether the students are from

  • Public Schools
  • Private Schools or are
  • Private Candidates
How much is registration fee? Top
Registration is free of cost.
 
How are roll numbers allotted? Top
PEC allocates roll numbers to the students on the basis of data provided by the districts and roll numbers are distributed by EDO Education office through schools. As the commission does not deal with the registration forms directly, so registration through the district offices is essential.
 
How to get errors in name, father’s name and date of birth corrected? Top
Students/parents can contact their concerned EDO office for any kind of correction. The Commission does not entertain any request directly.
 
How are examination centers established? Top
Examination Centers are established by the ECCs according to the prescribed criteria and proposal of the Executive District Officer (Edu) for each district.
 
How are question papers designed? Top
Question papers are developed according to the national curriculum.
 
How many subjects are there in Grade 5 & 8? Top
There are 5 subjects for Grade 5 and for Grade 8 (Math, English, Science, Urdu, Islamiayt/Ethics) Subject scheme is available on the website
 
What is the ratio of MCQs and Open Ended or descriptive questions in Question papers of Grade 5 and Grade 8? Top
There are 34 total items, 30 MCQs and 4 open ended questions for Grade 5 whereas Grade 8 has a total of 44 items, 40 MCQs and 4 open ended questions.Thus making a ratio of 60% MCQs and 40% open ended questions. Moreover, 40% marks are assigned for Nazra Quran and practical subjects like drawing, agriculture and home economics.
 
Are model papers for grade 5 and grade 8 available? Top
Sample papers for all subjects of Grade 5 and Grade 8 are available on the official website of the PEC.
 
Are there any separate examination for scholarship? Top
No scholarships are awarded on the basis of annual examination conducted by PEC.
 
When is the result announced? Top
Result is announced on 31st March, every year.
   
Is there any fees for rechecking of papers? Top
Currently Rs. 50 per subject charged for rechecking.
 
What is the procedure for re-checking of paper? Top
Application for rechecking should be routed through the concerned EDO (Edu) to the Commission within 15 days of the announcement of result.
 
Can a student get his or her examination center changed once allocated? Top
Centers cannot be changed.
 
Are Result Cards provided to students? Top
Result Card is provided to each student without any charges.
 
What is minimum age for appearing in the exam? Top
Minimum age for Grade V is 8 years whereas for Grade VIII the minimum age is 11 years.
 
Is there any maximum age limit for the students? Top
There is no maximum age limit for either grade.
 
What was wrong with the old system? Top
  • Analysis of Old exam system indicated that
  • They were primarily used to make decisions with regard to promotion and relegation
  • Results were not comparable across the districts
  • They did not adequately represent the curriculum (lacked content validity)
  • Not appropriate for the range of student ability
  • They used incorrect (arbitrary) marking scales
  • No central data base of results existed
 
What is the aim of the new system? Top
The new examination system will serve as a database to provide advice to a wide variety of stakeholders within the education sector. It will provide advice to the Minister, district superintendents, curriculum developers, schools, parents and students. More specifically its objectives include:
  • To elaborate what students at different levels of ability know, can do, and understand (use criterion referenced approach in conjunction with norm referenced approach)
  • To audit the officially prescribed school curriculum
  • To improve teaching and learning
  • To monitor equity of student outcomes
  • To monitor provincial education progress
  • To monitor school performance and progress
  • To monitor student progress over time
  • To monitor the efficiency of service delivery
  • To monitor the effectiveness of service delivery
  • To facilitate national and international comparison of student achievements
  • To select students to promote to the next class
  • To facilitate judgment about the quality of examination papers and the examination process (construct validity, reliability, item discrimination, match between paper difficulty and cohort ability
 
Who sets the Examination Papers and what format do they follow? Top
A committee comprising of subject specialists, teachers, Punjab Text Book Board officials and university members has been appointed and given the responsibility of setting examination papers under the coordination of the Operations Manager of PEC.
The paper setting procedure is further divided in three steps. The first step involves the development of a Subject design matrix to specify the content and question difficulty level. The second stage is to prepare a trial/mock examination that is tested using approximately 2000 students. Finally, the annual examination paper is prepared along with a similar ‘model paper’ for the schools’ aid.
For grade 5 each exam paper is 1 hour long and consists of some multiple choice questions and some open response questions.
 
What is the grading criterion? Top

While we do provide a “mark” for students, we also try and give greater meaning to this mark. The traditional mark system is what is technically referred to as a “norm referenced” system that gives us a mark and a rank for each student but tells us very little about the outcome the student has acquired.

The new system of analysis attempts to link outcomes to groups of students and is known as a “criterion referenced” system.
The approach taken is known as Rash Modeling, and we use Quest software to perform the analysis by entering student responses into an electronic database. 
For reference: Adams R.J. & Khoo, S-T. (1996) Quest: The interactive test analysis system, Version 2. Camberwell: ACER click here.
 
We understand that PEC is introducing a new conceptual framework to support the design of examination papers and the design of marking schemes for the open-ended questions. Top
Yes, this is so. Traditionally, test developers have used Bloom’s Taxonomy to encourage the use of questions of different difficulty. While Bloom has served us well and will continue to do so, there is some literature now available that suggests it does not describe student’s cognitive growth. (For example see Hattie article in the links below). If we ask “knowledge” or an “evaluation” question (Bloom’s terms) we can still expect a variety of qualities of responses from a cohort of students. In an attempt to classify these response qualities and the make explicit the differences between them we have introduced a conceptual framework that has grown out of the work of Piaget, and was developed by Biggs and Collis in 1982 known as the SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes). This conceptual framework has undergone considerable development since 1982, but thus far we are applying the relatively simple original version.
 
How the grades of A, B, C, D and E determined? Top
We calculate the mean and standard deviation of all the students. We then take a band, 1 standard deviation wide about the mean and students lying in this band are awarded a grade C. A Band one standard deviation wide above the grade C band is the Grade B band. Students above grade B are awarded grade A. In a similar manner, students below Grade C are awarded grades D and E. 
 
Why do you use transformed scores rather than raw scores? Top
There two level at which we can respond to this question. The first is a highly technical. The Rash model converts raw scores, which are an ordinal scale, to an interval level scale using logits as a unit of measurement of student ability and question difficulty. Initially these scores are located on a scale with a mean near 0 and range of approximately +4 to –4. To make the scores more meaningful to the non-statisticians amongst us, we use the Quest software to convert the logit scale to a range of zero to 50. This transformation retains the essential psychometric properties of the original logit scale, and the mean and standard deviation will depend on the original mean and standard deviation. Details can be downloaded from here.
 
What will the student reports look like, and will they include competency statements? Top
The student reports will contain personal details of the students, subject marks and grades. In the near future, the outcomes that the grades represent will be on the report as well. Details can be downloaded from here.
 
Who can get information from the PEC and how do they go about getting that data? Top
A policy on this matter is being developed. This is not a straight forward matter as there are issues of confidentiality involved.
However there are a set of standard reports being developed that will automatically be provided to students and parents, schools, district offices and specialist units within the Ministry of Education
 
How can my organization learn more about. Does PEC provide training for appropriate organizations? Top

PEC in association with DSD (Directorate of Staff Development) is developing sets of training materials. Currently, we have some materials developed and a few resource persons trained in their delivery. Our major focus is on the training of appropriate school principals to interpret the data from the examinations and to develop School Improvement Plan to address issues that appear from that analysis.