Meeting Of Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference To Decide Closure of Schools Postponed

The meeting of the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference was earlier scheduled to be held today on 13th January 2022 to decide about the closure of the educational institutes due to the 5th wave of COVID-19. According to the latest updates, there has been an upsurge in the number of the Omicron cases and the government has instructed the people to ensure the implementation of the SOPs to contain the spread of the pandemic. In the IPEMC meeting, the education ministers had to decide whether schools should stay open or should be closed by considering the ongoing situation of the pandemic. But before the start of the meeting, it got postponed and in this regard, notification has been issued by the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training.

IPEMC Meeting

The Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood, along with the education ministers of other provinces had to attend the meeting to make the decision regarding the schools. But now it has been said that the 34th meeting of the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference (IPEMC) will be held in the next week however the concerned officials have not stated any reason for the postponement of the meeting. Moreover in the IPEMC meeting, the education ministers had to discuss many other issues such as Interprovincial consultation to provide quality textbooks on time in the academic year 2022 and Interprovincial coordination for the provision of NOCs for textbooks at the appropriate time. As per the data reported by the National Command and Operations Centre more than 3,000 coronavirus cases have been recorded since September and the positivity ratio has crossed 6%.

Closure of Schools

Fawad Chaudhry had earlier announced that the schools will not be closed due to the increase in the number of coronavirus cases. He urged the students and teachers to get vaccinated in order to be protected from COVID-19. The minister added that it is not possible to impose the lockdown and shut down the educational institutes as it will waste the precious time of the students. The final decision will be taken about the closure of the schools in the meeting that will be held according to the new schedule announced by the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training.