Punjab to fix 190-day school calendar

Move aims to curb excessive holidays and improve overall academic system

RAWALPINDI:

A high-level committee formed on the orders of the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court has finalised recommendations for a province-wide academic calendar comprising 190 working days in schools and colleges across Punjab.

The proposals include reducing summer vacations from two-and-a-half months to six weeks or one and a half months.

The committee held three meetings over the past four months and presented its joint recommendations in the third meeting. Under the new proposals, educational institutions across the province will observe a total of 175 holidays annually, while the total number of teaching and academic working days will be fixed at 190. All private school associations in Punjab have agreed to the proposed framework.

Punjab School Education Department Special Secretary Muhammad Iqbal has directed PECTA and the Director Public Instruction (Secondary and Elementary) to formulate a uniform academic calendar of 190 working days for educational institutions across Punjab within three days, in light of the recommendations submitted by all committee members.

The committee observed that the continuous increase in holidays every year had been damaging the academic system, with syllabi of senior classes often remaining incomplete.

The committee was constituted by Justice Jawad Hassan on a writ petition filed in the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench against the unnecessary increase in holidays in Punjab's educational institutions.

The third meeting of the committee, constituted under the chairmanship of the secretary schools education, was held in Lahore under Punjab School Education Special Secretary Muhammad Iqbal.

Participants included former Punjab provincial education minister and President Pakistan Education Council Mian Imran Masood, Central President APSMA Kashif Adeeb Javedani, President North Punjab Abrar Ahmad Khan, representatives of major private school chains, Chairman Pakistan Chamber of Education Ali Raza and an Assistant Advocate General.

Participants expressed serious concern over the increase in summer and recent winter vacations, noting that the academic process could have been maintained through adjustments in teaching hours, which was not done.

APSMA President Abrar Ahmad Khan said that educational institutions in Islamabad were given only 10 days of winter vacations, while in adjoining Rawalpindi, despite improved weather conditions, a full month's holidays were granted, which he termed excessive.

The meeting proposed a 190-day education working calendar for schools and colleges in Punjab.