Amid a continued spike in the number of new Covid-19 cases, the Pakistan government has called a meeting of all provincial Education ministers on Thursday to discuss the possibility of school closures and winter vacations.
According to sources, the federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood will preside over the meeting, while ministers from all the four provinces, along with representatives from Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), will be in attendance, Geo News reported. Sources said the Ministers will review the situation in educational institutes and take the next steps accordingly.
The Ministers are also likely to discuss other matters, including the dates for winter vacations and the commencement of the new academic year from April to August 2021, the sources added.
On Tuesday, Mahmood issued a clarification regarding school closures, saying that the government has not decided anything yet. "Rumours again afloat regarding school closures. It is again clarified that educational institutions are not being closed," Geo News quoted the Minister as saying in a tweet. According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), Pakistan reported a total of 1,167 new coronavirus cases and 14 deaths in the last 24 hours, Dawn news reported.
With the latest tallies, the country's overall caseload and death toll stood at 337,029 and 6,857, respectively. Most of the new cases were reported in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Hyderabad, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Peshawar and Quetta.
