Federal, provincial govts urged to let schools reopen
Islamabad:4 January:The vice president of the Private Schools Management Association (PSMA), Amir Murtaza, has asked the federal and provincial education ministers to allow the educational institutions to reopen.
Addressing a meeting on Saturday, he said that all political parties, including those enjoying power, had been allowed to stage public gatherings in every big city across the country, economic activities were continuing, shopping malls, factories and markets were also allowed to open, and the public had been told to follow the Covid-19 standard operating procedures, but the authorities were only focused on keeping the educational institutions closed.
All this was being done despite the fact that educators had tried to fully implement the SOPs at schools and colleges, Murtaza said.
“The irony is that the federal and provincial governments insist on shuttering educational institutes only. But they don’t have any alternative through which academic loss of students could be recovered,” he said.
He pointed out that the World Health Organisation’s new checklist had been issued on December 11. “The new checklist supports schools to reopen. “Of the 38 essential actions, 21 focus on individual school-level measures to ensure the school returns to equitable and high-quality education while safeguarding the health and well-being of all students.”
Earlier on December 7, Unicef had called on the governments to prioritise the reopening of schools, and suggested taking all actions possible to make classrooms as safe as possible and avoid nationwide school closures.
The PSMA in its statement has shown serious concern about the disruption of education across the country. The organisation says that due to the closure of the schools, thousands of children have dropped their studies while the number of out-of-school children has been increasing with each passing day. It has demanded the reopening of the schools immediately.The news.
