Remaining educational institutions reopen today

PESHAWAR: The remaining educational institutions are reopening today after closer due to Covid-19 and the extended winter vacation.

The institutions for grade nine to 12 have already opened for academic activities on January 18. The schools from playgroup to middle level, colleges for degree programmes and universities are reopening today.

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) had earlier decided that the educational institutions would reopen from January 18 and 25, but later some changes were made and the lower and higher educational institutions were asked to reopen from February 1.

The private schools especially in the rural areas have already resumed their on-campus academic activities in defiance of the government decision.

The universities, which are resuming on-campus academic activities from today, had already announced schedules for combined mid and final term examinations in person. However, students of different universities started a series of protests in support of online examinations.

Several of the universities accepted the demands and revisited their decision.

The University of Peshawar (UoP) is the prime institution among them. After protests by students, the UoP management decided that the mid-term exam would be held online after the reopening of the university, while the final term exam would be held in concurrence with the Higher Education Commission’s decision.

The students of Institute of Management Sciences, Agriculture University Peshawar, CECOS University, University of Haripur, University of Swabi and others had staged similar protests to press their respective institutions for the online examination.

Meanwhile, the teachers of the University of Peshawar have announced that they would resume their duties from today by wearing black armbands to protest the university’s inability of paying them full salaries.

The university administration has already announced that only basic pay would be given to the employees of the university for the month of January owing to the severe financial crunch.

The Peshawar University Teachers Association (Puta) is critical of the provincial government for not paying a bailout package to the university for running its affairs in a smooth manner.

The teachers’ representative body has called a general body meeting on February 3 to discuss the matter and draw the future line of action.

Puta President Dr Fazle Nasir said that they would spare no effort for getting the genuine rights of the teachers and other employees.