Punjab ministry, school education dept toy with summer vacations announcement

The Punjab education ministry and the School Education Department kept toying with the summer vacations plan if there was any for the schoolchildren amid grueling heatwave gripping the province, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

Both ministry and the department continued to torment the kids for the last four days by changing the vacations date again and again.

First it was the Punjab School Education Department which on Friday last had announced the summer vacations for both government and private schools starting from June 1 and exhausting on August 14.

On Monday morning, Punjab Education Minister Rana Iskandar Hayat was seemingly alarmed by the scorching heat which he thought was unbearable for the “little ones” going to schools. So, the minister took to the X platform and uploaded a post announcing that the summer vacations will now start on May 22 (Wednesday).

Asserting that saving children from extreme weather conditions was a top priority of the Punjab government, Rana Sahab declared that that summer vacations would start at all schools in the province from May 22, barring those where exams are currently being held.

The minister said he sought from parents their opinions about starting the vacations early keeping in view the punishing heat. “Of over 7,000 parents who expressed their opinion, 96 percent demanded that vacations be announced immediately,” he said, adding, “Keeping in view the demand by the parents, I have decided that summer vacations in the province will begin on May 22.”

Hayat informed the notification for the purpose would be issued either today or tomorrow.

And a notification did come out a few hours later from the School Education Department but much to the chagrin of everyone it did not contain the date which the minister had unveiled in the morning.

The latest notification said the government and private schools in the province will now shut for one week starting from May 25 to May 31, 2024 due to intense heat.

According to the department’s May 17 notification, the summer vacations will start from June 1 and end on August 14.

The School Education Department had also released new school timings due to the ongoing heatwave spell. According to the new time schedule, the schools will open at 7 am and end at 11 am. On Fridays, the holiday will be at 10:30 am.

The notification for summer vacations will apply to both government and private schools.

The notification also called on school administrators to fix all the fans in the classrooms and provide cold water to the children.

Furthermore, the children will not be allowed to sit in the open space or playground.

All the education institutes will implement the new timetable at all costs. Action will be taken against the schools that do not obey the orders, the notification added.

Parents and students hope that there would be no more notifications regarding summer vacations from the government now.

Reporter Junaid Riaz