Staying the course: School holidays to be in June and July

Last year there was a stand-off between Cambridge-system schools and the education department.

KARACHI:

All the schools in the province will have summer vacations in June and July. The chief minister rejected the recommendations sent by the education department’s steering committee, which had suggested that the vacations be in July and August.

The committee had met on February 8 to decide on a myriad of academic matters - such as when the academic session would begin, the admission schedule, time of exams and vacations.

This decision has prevented a stand-off between the education department and the Cambridge-system schools like last year.

In 2011, the steering committee had received suggestions from segments of the civil society, government and private schools, which suggested that the summer holidays should be rescheduled to July and August to facilitate the people during Ramazan. However, the managements of almost all the Cambridge-system schools had criticised the decision. The reason was that their academic sessions began from August 1 and ended in May. June and July were the feasible months for them for vacations. Hence, the Sindh government had turned down the steering committee’s decision and kept the vacations from June 1 to July 31.

Meanwhile, the chairman of Private Schools Management Association, Sharfuz Zaman, said that the decision for having the summer holidays in June and July was against the proceedings of steering committee’s meeting itself which took place in February.

According to him, during the meeting two private-school representatives were present. One was Zaman itself and the other one was Syed Khalid Shah of the All Private Schools Management Association. Zaman said that he had asked  Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq to recall last year’s promises while objecting to vacations in June and July. “It was promised to us that from next year, summer vacations will be scheduled in July and August, while keeping the month of Ramazan in mind, which will fall in the middle of July in 2012.”

Zaman said that the education minister had directed the education secretary, Mohammad Siddiq Memon, to prepare a summary for it and then send it to the chief minister for approval.

The private schools will urge the government not to pay heed to the wishes of Cambridge-system schools, which are only two per cent, over the rest 98 per cent government and private schools.

Meanwhile, Shah said that last year’s situation had turned out to be quite insulting for the 98 per cent of stakeholders in the education system that also participated in the steering committee meeting and had made a unanimous decision about the schedule of summer holidays which were planned for July and August. But the decision was later overturned by the chief minister.

Shah explained that it had been decided that if this year’s summary was rejected by the chief minister then the holiday schedule of last year will be retained.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2012.