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Students, teachers welcome revival of old academic
session
Islamabad—Parents, students and private educational
institutions have hailed the government’s decision to revive the old
schedule of academic session, saying it would give impetus to the
students’ performance.
The 13th inter-provincial ministerial conference held on May 9
unanimously decided that academic session, from next year, would
start from March or April to make it more suitable to local
requirements and the country’s weather conditions.
Ilyas Khan, a father of a student said that the decision was a
logic-based and would have positive impact on the students’
performance, adding under the current academic schedule students
were subject to appear in exams at a time when the weather was
rather hot.
“The government’s decision for revival of old schedule of academic
session is a step in right direction, weather conditions definitely
affect students’ performance and then look the current wave of
load-shedding that matters much,” he observed.
Shafiq Butt another parent said under the current academic session
students wasted three-month long summer vacations as they were free
from studies and to start new classes in September after taking
exams in May or June.
“Three-month holidays is the only period when parents can help their
children in studies, while now parents are helpless as their
children have not started new classes and completed the previous
level, children have nothing to do but to play pranks at home”, he
remarked.
Zahid Hussain, a student, said the government had started fulling
its promise to ensure quality education by bringing reforms in
education sector, adding the particular decision about revival of
old schedule of academic session was a good start in that direction.
“The government has scored points by announcing to start academic
session from March and April, it won hearts of parents who had been
asking for better learning environment for their children over the
entire period of the past government, but to no avail”, the student
said.
President All Pakistan Private Schools Owners Association Malik
Abrar when contacted said that private sector was thankful to the
Minister for Education Ashan Iqbal for fulfilling the long-standing
demand of the citizens.
With start of academic session from March and April, he said the
students would have maximum time to study and would be in a better
position to do well in their exams.
“The previous government had curtailed the studies duration to six
months only by starting the academic session from September, which
created several problems for students as well as parents”.
He also asked the government to carry out audit of taxes collected
by the self-financed regulatory authority from private educational
institutions, demanding these funds should be spent for welfare of
these institutions.
The civil society also supported the government steps to improve
standard of public sector education in order to make quality
education accessible to every citizen of the country irrespective of
sex and social status.
They said the proposed initiatives in the education sector would
help foster creativity, innovation, pursuit of excellence and
integrity and promote culture of team work among students in the
present era of knowledge revolution.
They also demanded early implementation of the minister’s decision
for resolution of teachers’s problems, saying it should regularize
the services of the contract-based teachers to improve their
performance.—APP
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