An institution that charges tens of thousands of rupees per exam paper has a duty to protect the integrity of its assessments. Cambridge International Education’s (CIE) admission that this year’s AS?Level mathematics paper was “shared prematurely” says the opposite. According to reports circulating after the exam, the question paper was doing the rounds on social media hours before the session. Cambridge now says it is investigating the extent of the breach and determining its next steps.
It is galling to think of anxious teenagers frantically revising while others scroll through an answer key.
Unfortunately, this leak is not a one?off. In 2025, the CIE admitted that content from three AS and A-Level papers, including two mathematics papers and one computer science paper, had been available before the scheduled exams. In 2024, an AS-Level mathematics paper was said to have been seen by a significant number of Pakistani students before the exam and later moved to award assessed marks. The pattern is clear. Every breach widens the trust deficit between those who study on merit and those who can buy an advantage. It also erodes the argument that foreign boards are inherently fair.
Last summer, the National Assembly’s education committee noted that the university collects around Rs 60,000 per exam paper in Pakistan. A separate report put annual remittances for UK-affiliated degree programmes and examination sessions at roughly Rs 80 billion. More than 100,000 Pakistani students sit O- and A-Level exams each year. Parents pay these sums because they believe a foreign credential will help their children enter universities abroad or escape the dysfunction of local boards.
A subcommittee of the National Assembly has already called for a comprehensive regulatory framework for foreign boards and for Cambridge to register with the Inter?Boards Coordination Commission. It recommended rationalised fees, adjusted thresholds or retakes when papers are compromised, and investigations that identify those responsible. Those recommendations should not remain buried in committee paperwork. Pakistan’s government must require the British Council to disclose security protocols, share inquiry findings and compensate students whose academic futures are disrupted by malpractice.
Beyond regulatory fixes lies a deeper, much harder question: why has the country outsourced so much of its assessment of talent to a foreign board that has repeatedly failed to police its own exams? Parents choose Cambridge because they perceive local boards as corrupt, rote-driven and unreliable. That perception will not change through slogans. Some local examples, including the Federal Board and the Aga Khan University Examination Board, show that more transparent and concept-based testing is possible. Strengthening such institutions and reforming provincial boards would reduce the colonial-era cachet of a Cambridge certificate.
