All Pakistan Private Schools Federation (APPSF) has welcomed the decision of NCOC to open schools from 24th May and claimed it to be the collective struggle of private schools to push for their reopening.
APPSF President Kashif Mirza applauded the government’s decision to resume educational activities but at the same time, objected to following the phase-wise regime. He called for the government to reopen educational institutions at once to save students’ academic year from wasting.
Shutting down schools was not the solution to the problem, Mirza said and added that the association believes the use of the option of targeted micro-lockdown across the country to stem contagion spread. The schools have already faced an irreparable loss of education of 75 million students and it is impossible to make up for the educational loss due to lockdown especially when 25 million children in Pakistan are out of schools,” the APPSF president said.
Mirza demanded to vaccinate all the children and teachers on a priority basis despite schools closure. Mirza further demanded the government to provide free laptops, net facilities along with devices to the students. Kashif Mirza also demands the governments announce the date-sheet of all the examinations.
He said the cancellation and delayed exams would leave a drastic impact on the students’ future and they would lose six to seventh months to be promoted to the next class. Kashif Mirza cited that different global organisations have advised keeping schools open while reciting results of Gallup’s survey according to which 87% of parents want resumption of schools.
He said political gatherings should be banned instead as the same were threats to the lives of millions of people. He said that a large number of children who did not go to school because of closure were becoming part of child labour. He further said the closure was also resulting in the economic murder of thousands of teachers and people associated with schools.
He said that the continuous closure of private schools across the country has hurt owners as almost 10,000 schools across the country have been shut down and around 700,000 teachers have become unemployed. Mirza further demanded the government announce a relief package for teachers.
He said that according to UNICEF, the closure of schools during the coronavirus pandemic had proven to be counter-productive while as many as 40 million children in Pakistan were affected due to schools’ shut down.
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