Stressing that holding of examinations was necessary despite the fact that many schools had to be closed down on account of the coronavirus and children could not receive the education they should have received, Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood said on Monday that still the government had given three-month time to the students to cover their courses for the exams, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

Speaking at the National Assembly (NA), he said that syllabuses had been cut short by 40 per cent.

He further said it was unfortunate that during the last few days some political parties did politics on the issue of exams just for the sake of becoming more popular with the masses. “There were calls for the postponement of exams,” he said, and added, “However, the government decided to take all federating units onboard all of which, including the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government in Sindh and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, agreed on holding of the examinations since all provincial education ministers believed that exams were must in the given circumstances.”

Shafqat informed that now FA and Fsc students would appear in three, and not four, papers.

He deplored that the opposition parties politicized the issue despite the fact that consensus had developed over it. “Opposition leaders said about me that I had run away and that an ad titled, ‘Search for the Missing’ would have to be placed in newspapers,” Shafqat said, and added, “You need not give an ad about me, but about that man who had fled to London.”