ISLAMABAD : The Inter-board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) has given go-ahead to the project to digitize the records of all the boards in order to create ease for documents attestation.

According to the IBCC, the step has been taken in order to strengthen the automation system to facilitate the attestation and equivalence process for the general public.

Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood had directed the education authorities to digitize the records after which a meeting was held between Secretary IBCC Dr Ghulam Ali Mallah and National Information Technology Board (NITB) executive director in the Federal Capital.

In a follow-up, a meeting of chairmen examining bodies was also held in which it was agreed to create a central repository of data of all the examination boards of Pakistan at the IBCC Islamabad.

The digitization process will be rolled out in phases and as a pilot phase, FBISE Islamabad, BISE Lahore, BISE Peshawar, BISE Quetta and BISE Karachi will add their data to the central repository.

In the next phase, the NITB will support the digitization of the existing manual data of all the boards in collaboration with the IBCC.

It was agreed that the National IT Board will provide e-office services to the IBCC secretariat and its regional offices to automate all internal processes. Later, the data of boards will be integrated with the attestation and equivalence e-portals of the IBCC to convert the existing hybrid system into complete automation.

The NITB will also help design software and create a Central Banks of Question Items at IBCC secretariat for all examination boards which will help to shift the assessment from rote learning to concept learning system.