Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood announced on Friday that primary classes will reopen nationwide from February 1, while grades 9 -12 will resume from January 18 as planned.
Federal and provincial ministers from the education and health sectors deliberated on the matter in detail and reviewed different aspects. While briefing the media after a meeting of the National Command and Operation Centre in this regard, Mahmood said grades 1-8 will begin on February 1. He added that the decision to resume the primary classes was taken after reviewing the health situation in the country.
Meanwhile, another meeting between the education and health ministers will be held next week to review the situation further. Mahmood said the meeting will be held to review the infection rate in different areas before the reopening, indicating that authorities in high-risk cities or districts may make a decision accordingly. He said no student will be promoted this year without taking the examinations and keeping this in view they have decided to re-open the educational institutes from grade 9 to grade 12 as they will have to sit in the examinations.
He said they would decide the authorities may opt to stick to online learning with children getting homework from schools weekly in the cities where the positivity ratio is quite high.
“When we decided to reopen the school earlier the positivity rate of the coronavirus was 1.9percent and when we again closed the schools on November 26 the positivity rate has rocketed to 11.7 percent. He said the critical situation still persists as still, the positivity rate is above 6percent while the average mortality rate is 44 which is almost as same as it was at the time when we decided to close the schools. He said everyone knows that the students learning process has been greatly disturbed due to the closure of the educational institutes but they have to take into account the health matters as well.
