Private schools announce reopening on Aug 15

Two private school associations on Tuesday announced the reopening of schools on August 15, with a policy to maintain SOPs to prevent the coronavirus spread.

In separate press conferences, the Private Schools Action Committee and the All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association maintained that a further closure of the educational institutions would push the teachers and other staffers towards serious crisis.

PSAC leader Pervez Haroon said the COVID-19 situation was getting better in Pakistan as “according to a Gallup survey 74 per cent of parents want to send their children to school”.Haroon said schools had incurred losses due to a prolonged closure and “the industry couldn't tolerate it anymore”. He said a committee had prepared 31 SOPs that would be maintained to reopen the schools.He said the decision was taken at a conference of the private schools’ bodies in Islamabad on July 20 as “neither the federal nor the provincial government paid any heed to the concerns of the schools”.

Separately, APPSMA leader Syed Tariq Shah demanded of the government to waive all taxes on the education industry and “provide schools with easy loans to help recover the losses incurred during the lockdown”. Shah asked the government to issue a notification for the reopening of the educational institutions from August 15, “respecting the decision of the private schools' associations”.