Private schools want classes to resume from January 11

• Schools will reopen with COVID-19 SOPs in place from Jan 11, say Private Schools Supreme Council
• Private Schools Supreme Council lament no government pays any attention to education and health sectors
• Council members say most of the schoolchildren do not have access to the internet.

ISLAMABAD: The Private Schools Supreme Council demanded the government allow in-person classes to be held at campuses from January 11, according to a report in The News. 

In a defiant manner, the council's office-bearers Afzal Babar, Abrar Khan, Nasir Mehmood ad Hafiz Basharat said that the government should allow classes to resume at campuses on January 11 and even if it didn't, schools would reopen from January 11. 

The private schools council said the government needed to understand their problems and take steps to resolve them.

The council leaders said education and healthcare played an important role in the development of a country but unfortunately, the two areas had never been the priority of any government in Pakistan.

They said even in the annual budget, the amount allocated for these two sectors remains very low.

Citing a recent report of UNICEF, Supreme Council leader Dr. Afzal Babar said the future of more than 40 million students in Pakistan was at risk due to the closure of educational institutions.

Criticising online education, he said 80% of the schoolchildren were poor hence they did not have access to it. 

“The difference between other countries and Pakistan is that the closure of educational institutions was the last option for them, while here in our country this is the first option,” he added.

He said at least 80% of schools across the country did not have access to the Internet and that thousands of schools have closed their doors and many others are following the suit.

The council members demanded of students of Punjab, Balochistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir should also be allowed to attend school at least once a week on the pattern of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad, and Sindh and that educational institutions be reopened with full SOPs to save the future of students.

“The government provided relief to all other sectors but unfortunately educational institutions were completely ignored. Perhaps, it is the only sector that provided a 20 to 40% discount on its fees.” They also demanded relief for small-time educational institutions in electricity and water bills. 

Schools may reopen from Jan 25: report

The upcoming meeting of education ministers is expected to mull the reopening of educational institutions in three phases, the Daily Jang had reported on Saturday.

The federal government, on the recommendation of the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), had closed educational institutions from November 26, 2020, to January 10, 2021.

Under that plan, schools were to reopen on January 11. But the rising spread of the novel coronavirus across the country has cast a shadow on that decision with federal and provincial education ministers saying that it was "unlikely" educational institutions would be allowed to reopen.

The matter would be reviewed at a meeting of the education ministers, chaired by Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood, on January 4 to discuss the national education policy. The final decision would be taken after advice from the health ministry on the matter.

Jang reported on Saturday that the education ministers would deliberate reopening educational institutions in phases. In the first phase, the primary level students would head back to school on January 25. The second phase would see middle schools reopening by February 4 and the higher education institutions would start by February 15 in the third phase.