Pakistan’s Sindh to reopen schools from August 23

Karachi: The Sindh government has decided to reopen schools in the province, which were closed last month as part of the lockdown imposed to fight the deadly spread of coronavirus Delta variant.

A decision to this effect was reached at the meeting of the Steering Committee of Sindh Education Department with provincial Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah in the chair.

Shah informed media persons that the session of the Steering Committee had consulted all the concerned stakeholders before making the decision to reopen the educational institutions. He said the Sindh Health Minister and officials from Sindh Home Department were included among the special participants of the session.

He said the Steering Committee had decided to reopen schools from August 23 for the sake of continuity of education of the students in the province.

In the initial stage, the schools had been allowed to reopen with 50 per cent attendance. Only those educational institutions where all teaching staff had received vaccine jabs would be allowed to reopen.

This condition will not immediately be applied to schools in rural areas where the vaccination process has been slow, the Education Minister explained.

He said a system would be evolved wherein parents of students would also be required to submit proof of receiving the COVID-19 vaccination.

The Education Minister said schools were required to act upon a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for safety of the students, teaching, and non-teaching staff from the virus.

Shah said that coronavirus tests would be conducted in schools on a random basis to check if there was any outbreak of the viral disease among the students or teachers.

He said that a working committee had been formed, which would meet on August 20 to suggest the way forward regarding reopening of the schools.

Although the educational institutions were closed in Sindh, the provincial government earlier decided to resume conducting remaining papers of Higher Secondary School Certificate Annual Examinations in the province from August 10 with strict compliance of the SOPs.