A provincial education official has announced that summer holidays for schools in Sindh will be extended by two weeks due to soaring temperatures, affecting over 100,000 schools.

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Pakistan is increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather conditions driven by climate change, including hotter and more frequent heatwaves and heavier, longer monsoons.

“We decided to close schools for an additional 14 days for the children’s well-being,” said Atif Vighio, a spokesperson for the Sindh education department (SELD).

Planned power cuts, or load-shedding, occur frequently in the country due to a persistent power supply crisis. In rural Sindh, these outages can last more than 12 hours a day, leaving schools without fans.

“As a teacher, I am worried about completing the curriculum, but as a mother, I am concerned about kids going to school in this heat,” a public school teacher told AFP, requesting anonymity. “It is the load-shedding we are worried about, not just the heat.”

The government reports that more than 26 million children are out of school due to poverty.

Pakistan endured a series of heatwaves in May and June, with temperatures peaking above 50°C (122°F) in parts of rural Sindh. Authorities in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, began summer vacations a week early in May to protect children from the extreme heat.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF stated that over three-quarters of children in South Asia — about 460 million — experience temperatures above 35°C (95°F) for at least 83 days annually.

Despite contributing less than 1% to global greenhouse gas emissions, Pakistan has faced severe weather-related disasters in recent years due to changing climate patterns.

This extension of summer holidays underscores the immediate impact of climate change on education and daily life, highlighting the need for comprehensive strategies to protect vulnerable populations from extreme weather conditions.

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