ISLAMABAD – Educational institutions reopened in the South Asian country and in-person classes started from today as the third wave of covid pandemic shows signs of easing with the positivity rate dipping to around 3 percent.
All schools in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and classes from grade-9 and above in Sindh started today. Students of each class would be allowed to come on alternate days with 50 percent attendance each day. The closure stemmed from rising in new infections that ended after 83 days.
A notification issued in this regard stated that students will come to school six days a week with 50 percent attendance. No student will be allowed to come to school for two consecutive days due to the ongoing Covid pandemic while strict SOPs have been enforced to keep the pandemic in check.
Punjab Education Minister Murad Raas took to Twitter where he wrote that ‘government teams will be monitoring the situation very closely’.
Meanwhile, students of grades 1-8 have started in-person classes from today whereas the schools are already conducting classes for matric and intermediate.
Likewise, schools in 30 districts were opened and universities resumed classes from today in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while schools in six of the districts including Peshawar are still closed due to a high number of new Covid infections.
The Sindh government had allowed only higher classes while primary classes suspended for the next 15 days as lockdown restrictions in the province prolonged. Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah allowed the reopening of schools for classes 9 and above with directions for strict implementations of COVID-19 SOPs. He further directed educational staff to vaccinate themselves at the earliest.
Earlier, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) allowed provinces to resume physical education in districts where the positivity ratio is less than 5 percent from May 24 in the first phase, while those with a higher prevalence of the virus were scheduled to open from June 7.
