Shift Nawaz Sharif to hospital: Medical team
Islamabad, July 23 : Jailed Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who has fallen ill and was suffering from heart and kidney ailments, has been asked to be shifted to a hospital by a medical team, a jail official said.
The medical team, led by retired General Azhar Kiani, visited Adiala jail in Rawalpindi on Sunday after Sharif complained, the jail administration official told Dawn newspaper on Monday.
Following his medical check-up, the medical team said that Sharif "needed to be hospitalised for immediate treatment", he added.
The heartbeat of the former Prime Minister was irregular due to dehydration and the presence of urea in blood might affect his kidneys, the medical team has said.
The medical team's recommendation had been sent to the Punjab health secretary and the caretaker government, Dawn reported.
"The government will take a decision on it," he said, adding that the team had been called after the former prime minister complained that he was not feeling well.
The official said that a separate medical team from the district headquarters hospital conducted a medical check-up of Sharif's jailed son-in-law, retired Captain Muhammad Safdar, as he was suffering from ear and throat infections.
Kiani, the chief executive officer of Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology and former commandant of the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology, was physician of former President-retired General Pervez Musharraf. He was not available for comments.
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Karnataka SSLC question papers to have new format for academic year 2024-25
Bengaluru: In a significant shift, the Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB) has reportedly announced changes to the format of the SSLC annual exam question papers for the academic year 2024-25 and released a blueprint outlining these revisions. This overhaul, the first major revision since 2019-20, is aimed at enhancing the quality of learning and reducing students' dependence on rote memorisation.
Marks will now be allocated based on themes rather than individual chapters, with a focus on key concepts, according to a report published by The Hindu on Monday. For instance, language papers can be organised around themes such as prose, poetry, and grammar, while core subjects will feature units that combine multiple lessons.
A significant component of this change is the reintroduction of a weightage system based on learning objectives, which includes: remembering (20%), understanding (40%), and application (20%). In addition, 15% of the marks will be allocated to skills such as diagram drawing, while 5% will focus on higher-order thinking questions that encourage critical analysis and problem-solving.
“This method ensures equal importance is given to all chapters during teaching and learning. Teachers and students can move away from the practice of preparing for exams solely based on chapter-wise marks allocation. While specific marks are not assigned to individual chapters, clear weightage is given to relevant themes. This approach guarantees comprehensive practice for each chapter and allows for diverse question types in the exams,” the blueprint stated, as cited by the news outlet.
Key changes also include a reduction in the number of one-mark and two-mark questions, in favour of more three-mark and four-mark questions and the introduction of one five-mark question.
The blueprint mentioned that one-mark questions, which often lead to guesswork, would be replaced with more descriptive questions that challenge students to think critically, write extensively, and refine their expression skills.
The updated question paper format will include 45 questions for the first language, and 38 questions for other subject papers. Some of the three-mark, four-mark, and five-mark questions may contain sub-questions. Additionally, internal choice questions, worth a total of 20 marks, will continue to be part of the exam and will be based on the same themes and chapters as the primary questions.
Despite these revisions, KSEAB has clarified that the overall difficulty level of the exams will remain unchanged. The distribution of marks will continue to follow the same pattern as in previous years, with 30% of questions considered easy or very easy, 50% of average difficulty, and 20% deemed difficult.
