Holiday breaks: No change in vacation schedule

Summer vacations will be from Jun 1 till Aug 31 while winter holidays will be between Dec 21 and Dec 31

KARACHI: There will be no change in the schedule of winter and summer vacations, which were expected to be changed in the wake of extreme weather conditions experienced across the province after the winter vacations this year.

After a delay of one month, the meeting of the steering committee was held on Wednesday under Education Minister Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar. In the meeting, which was also attended by the secretaries of schools and colleges along with the heads of all the examination boards of the province, the steering committee finalised the schedule for education calendar for the year, including examination, results and schedule of academic session and vacations.

It was decided that summer vacations will be from June 1 till August 31 in this year. Meanwhile, winter break will be between December 21 and December 31.

Meanwhile, all the educational institutions across the province will dedicate a week to sports and extracurricular activities, such as sports day and speech competition.

Dahar also announced the official holidays for the academic year and the timings of the educational institutes.

Examination schedule

It was decided in the meeting that the annual examinations for 2017 of the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, will start from March 28 while those of the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi, will begin from April 28. All the examinations boards across the province should announce their annual results for Matric by the end of July 31.

Academic session

For 2017, the academic session for the public schools will start on April 1 while the academic session for schools affiliated with the Aga Khan University Examination Board will start from May 1.

The schools affiliated with the Cambridge International Examinations will, however, commence their academic session from August 15.

Coping with copy culture

The committee also decided to take steps to end copy culture in exams. Dahar warned of taking strict action against teachers and invigilators who are found helping students in cheating during examination.

Closed schools opened

The meeting was informed that since December 21 last year, 306 closed schools in Larkana, 404 in Sukkur, 183 in Shaheed Benazirabad, 155 in Hyderabad, 394 in Mirpurkhas and 25 in Karachi have been opened.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2017.