The education ministers of Sindh and Punjab, KPK and Baluchistan on Monday said that schools in their provinces would reopen in phases from Sept 15.
Their comments came as the federal and provincial governments sat together to decide on reopening of 300,000 educational institutions, closed due to the pandemic for almost six months, across the country.
A meeting of the inter-provincial education ministers’ conference (IPEMC) is ongoing, according to the education ministry, and a countrywide decision on opening of schools is expected later today.
The ministers are discussing implementation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) in educational institutions as well as making the students and parents aware about precautionary measures.
Punjab Minister for School Education Dr Murad Raas said on Twitter that schools in Punjab would open in phases with students in classes nine and 10 returning on Sept 15, students in classes six to eight returning on Sept 22 while those in classes nursery to five will return to school on Sept 30.
Raas said no double shifts would be allowed while all schools would follow the alternative day schedule according to which 50 per cent of total students would come to school one day while the remaining 50pc would attend the next day.
Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani also said that schools in the province would open phase-wise.
"Classes nine and above would be opened on Sept 15 in the first phase and one week after that on Sept 22, classes six to eight would be opened and one week after that, that is Sept 30, the classes from pre-primary to five would be opened," he said in a statement.
Masks would be made mandatory in all schools, he said, adding that all schools would have to implement the SOPs. Strict action would be taken against schools that do not implement SOPs, Ghani said.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan education departments have said they will follow the decision taken by the federal government in this regard.
Last week, the KP government decided to conduct random testing of students and teachers for coronavirus after the reopening of educational institutions.
According to Officials, the education and health departments would jointly carry out around 3,000 random Covid-19 testing on campuses daily.