No winter vacations this year for educational institutions in Sindh

KARACHI: The Sindh government announced that there will be no winter vacations this year for educational institutions that reopen from September 15 across the country. 

This was stated by Sindh Education and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani as he addressed a press conference at the Sindh Assembly building on Friday. 

Ghani said that educational institutions will also continue to teach on Saturdays and there will be no winter vacations this year. 

Read more: Schools, universities allowed to reopen in phases starting September 15

He explained that the ongoing school academic year in the province would last till April 15, 2021 and that the curricula of all the classes had been slashed this year due to the closure of the educational institutions for many months.

Speaking about next year, the minister said that the academic year will begin on May 3, 2021 next year. Summer vacations next year will only be reduced to a single month in July, he said, as schools had remained close for a lot of months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The minister said that parents who were not satisfied with safety arrangements and precautions for their children would be given the option of online education. 

Read more: Saeed Ghani warns schools against crossing govt on reopening directives

According to the education minister, some 2,262 schools had been registered and training given to 20,997 teachers under a programme initiated by the education department to conduct online classes with Microsoft's support.

Ghani cautioned private schools from receiving additional charges from students owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that as per the Supreme Court's orders, only a 5% fee hike has been permitted. 

He said that monitoring committees had been constituted at the district level in Sindh with the involvement of the deputy commissioners to ensure that schools, after their reopening, properly observed the standard operating procedures against the spread of the coronavirus.

The reopening of the educational institutions was a tough call for the government compared to its earlier decisions regarding reopening of other sectors of trade and economy with the decrease in the COVID-19 cases, the education minister remarked.