School's out for the summer — but not when officials want

Karachi: A rift has developed among government and private school owners who on Friday decided to defy the recent government decision to observe summer holidays in July and August and instead follow the earlier holiday plan.

The association of private schools, which administer curricula of the Cambridge system of education, met on Friday to reach a decision about the summer holidays. After an hour-long deliberation Jamil Yousuf, head of the association announced that the schools under their umbrella would observe the summer break in June and July instead of the new official schedule which asked schools to close in July and August.

The provincial chief minister approved a summary to this effect and a formal notification was pending.

The decision was made in view of the forecast of severe monsoons that might peak in July and August as in the past two years these months were disastrous in the province because of heavy rains and floods.

The second reason was that Ramadan in late July would require dawn-to-dusk fasting for Muslims.

There are some 50,000 government schools which observe holidays in July and August with 16,000 other schools which follow different curricula.