All Punjab schools to begin reopening next week in 'staggered approach': Murad Raas

The Punjab government on Thursday announced a staggered reopening of schools — public and private — from June 7.

According to a notification from the school education department, the following conditions will be "implemented strictly":

• Only 50% students shall attend classes on a given day.
• No student shall attend the school for two consecutive days.
• All concerned authorities shall ensure observance and compliance of COVID-19 SOPs in letter and spirit.

The decision, according to the notification, were taken in line with the recommendations of the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference (IPEMC) that took place a day ago.

Following the conference, Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood had announced students of matric and ninth across the country would be assessed on the basis of elective subjects and math this year.

The minister, explaining the decision during a press conference in Islamabad, said only four exams, including math for ninth and matric, will be conducted. These include biology, computer science, physics, and chemistry.

No student would be awarded grades without attempting examinations this year, the education minister stressed, adding: "If we do not conduct the exams, then students will not even employ minimum efforts to study."

Classes 11 and 12 will be assessed on only elective subjects, said Mehmood. "This decision will make the examination process easier for students."

The minister said the exams of elective subjects will be conducted as students aspiring to opt for a selected field could be assessed on the basis of their elective subjects.

The education minister said boards were preparing to conduct exams from June 24, and now, to facilitate students, we have asked them to begin examinations after July 10.

"We have also asked boards to keep some gap between the exams," he said, as he explained the government had taken several steps to ease the process on the students as the educational institutions could not complete the course work.

The education minister said exams of classes 10 and 12 would be conducted first — from July 10 — and the examinations of classes 9 and 11 will be conducted once they end.