File photo. Twitter
Provincial education minister says schools and colleges will be required to ensure compliance with SOPs
Punjab Education Minister Murad Raas on Thursday announced that all public and private schools of the province would be allowed to reopen from Monday, June 7, in a “staggered” manner.
“Only 50 percent of students shall attend classes on a given day,” read a notification detailing the guidelines that educational institutions would have to follow to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. “No student shall attend schools for two consecutive days,” it said, adding that “all the concerned authorities shall ensure the observance and compliance of COVID-19 SOPs in letter and spirit.”
Raas, in a posting on Twitter, stressed that SOPs would be implemented “strictly,” adding the government would monitor the situation “very closely.”
A meeting of education ministers from all federating units of Pakistan had in March decided to shut educational institutions in all districts of the country that had a high incidence of COVID-19. Punjab, the driver of the third wave of the pandemic, had been impacted the most, with major cities in the province seeing their schools and colleges shut for the past two months. With the third wave now on the decline, the government had last week indicated the educational institutions would reopen in June.
Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood has stressed that all teachers would be prioritized for vaccination against the coronavirus, with the process currently underway.