“Schools should be reopened on January 11”

A council for private schools has demanded the reopening of educational institutions on January 11 as planned from the government.

While speaking at a press conference in Islamabad on Thursday, the council lamented on the decision of school closure by the government and said that the schools were following all the standard operating procedures (SOP) for coronavirus but the government decided to shut down the schools while “hotels and markets have been allowed to stay open.”

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The council added that said at least 80 percent of schools across the country did not have access to internet “thousands of schools have been shut down permanently and many other are on a brink of closure.”

The council also demanded the financial relief for the education sector and said that registration fee and taxes should be waved off for at least a year.

In November, the federal government, on recommendations by the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), had announced the closure of all educational institutions from November 26 to January 10 amid pandemic on rise.

The classes for all students were shifted online till December 24 and winter vacations were announced from December 25 till January 11. Meanwhile, all examinations are also postponed until further notice.

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However, the federal government has called a meeting on January 4 to review the pandemic situation in the country to give final decision on the reopening of schools.

According to reports, Pakistan has shown 79,233 coronavirus positive infections since the start of December, taking the national tally to 479,715. The country's COVID-19 death toll has also crossed the number of 10,000 with the pandemic claiming 2,014 lives in the last 30 days.