Last month, school children from across Lahore were exposed to a real-life lesson that no classroom is likely to teach them: that winning is a factor of how well one can bend and manipulate the system to one’s ends, not hard work and discipline. Some must have also come away with a further conclusion: that what really matters is not fair competition but victory, whatever the cost.
The Pakistan Spelling Bee (PSB) is an initiative of Storykit (Private) Limited. Inaugurated in 2023 as a nationwide platform for spelling competitions in Urdu and English, and sponsored (according to Storykit’s website) by Bank of Punjab, The News International, Oxford University Press, and LUMS School of Education, among others, the PSB is now in its third year. What hundreds of students, parents, and school administrators witnessed in the Lahore competitions, held over the first weekend of October at LGS Paragon, was a competition riven by allegations of mismanagement, and in some egregious cases, misconduct and nepotism, on the part of the PSB staff, including judges.
Having listened to dozens of witness accounts and read official and private complaints and correspondences sent to PSB via email over the past three weeks, the picture that emerges is nothing less than mortifying. At a very basic level, time management was a big problem.
While minor delays can be forgiven and even overlooked in our context, things took a more insidious turn when several teams, including those comprising primary school children, were made to wait for hours while results were presumably being tabulated. Children sat waiting indefinitely to find out the outcome of what should have been a fairly obvious and transparent contest. And then, once results began to roll out, challenges and appeals relating to claims of wrongdoing and rigging ensued.
Their observations ranged from judges not knowing the correct pronunciation or the meanings of the words and simply glossing over their own mistakes
These were mixed with outrage over what many school administrators and parents perceived to be the sheer incompetence of judges and verifiers, at best, and partiality towards certain schools and teams, at worst. Their observations ranged from judges not knowing the correct pronunciation or the meanings of the words and simply glossing over their own mistakes; verifiers taking instructions from others instead of independently checking the results; and staff inexplicably resorting to Alexa or AI tools to substitute for human interlocutors in certain sessions.
One particular incident, officially documented, on the first day of the competition, is worth reproducing here to grasp the extent of the PSB fiasco. Two teams faced each other in the Grade 9 Urdu competition: LGS International and Aitchison College. Here is an excerpt from the LGS coordinator’s complaint to the PSB regarding this competition (dated 7 October):
“...we observed a clear bias in favour of Aitchison College, particularly during the Grade 9 Urdu Spelling Bee. Despite repeated disruptions by the Aitchison supervisor, both during preliminary and final rounds, no action was taken. After our team was fairly announced as Gold Medal winners, the decision was reversed following pressure from Aitchison’s supervisor, resulting in an unplanned tie-breaker... This led to confusion and distress for our team, which ultimately resulted in a Bronze award. Additionally, our students reported bullying backstage by Aitchison students, which is totally unacceptable, and many supervisors and parents from other schools raised concerns about how the decision could be changed after formally announcing it. We request a formal review of the recordings and scoring for the Grade 9 Urdu round and urge PSB to take steps to ensure fairness and integrity in future events.”
This complaint, which relates not to an early round of the competition but the Grade 9 Urdu final itself, has not received a conclusive response to date. Imagine a team being announced and live-streamed as the winner, and then having their victory reversed after a hiatus because the opponent’s supervisors were evidently better equipped at the art of coercion. One must add here that the judge for this particular final was none other than the CEO of Storykit, who apparently gave no valid grounds for reversing his own decision after making it official.
One hopes that there might still be a chance to salvage this programme. But that can only materialise if an initiative like this has proper institutional support and mechanisms for accountability. For a start, as LGS International has requested, PSB ought to provide a fair and transparent review of the competition in question instead of brushing its alleged misconduct under the carpet. There was a time, not too long ago, when a reputed media group used to run an admirable spelling bee competition. We sorely need a robust institutional player to infuse an ethical framework, and with that a spirit of fair and positive sportsmanship, back into the game.