Educational institutions to remain closed from Nov 26 till Jan 10 due to COVID-19

Islamabad: Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood on Monday announced to shut educational institutes till January 10 due to coronavirus outbreak and winter holidays.

While addressing the press conference in Islamabad, Shafqat Mahmood has said that the educational institutes will remain closed from November 26 to December 24 following surge in covid-19 cases. Online classes will be conducted by the teachers to facilitate the students during this period, he stated.

The minister further told that the institutions will again shut from December 25 to January 10 for winter vacations.

Earlier, inter-provincial education ministers’ conference had suggested to close educational institutions for one month due to increasing cases of coronavirus across the country.

A meeting chaired by Shafqat Mahmood was held in Islamabad during which, the provincial govenrments had unanimously recommended to close the institutions from November 25 to December 24 while they also suggested to postpone the examinations.

On the other hand, Pakistan has reported 34 deaths in the last 24 hours by novel coronavirus as the number of positive cases has surged to 376,929. The nationwide tally of fatalities has jumped to 7,696 today.

According to National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 2,756 persons tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.

Sindh remains the worst-hit province by the pandemic in terms of cases followed by Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Punjab has overtaken Sindh in most number of casualties.

Till now 163,329 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Sindh, 114,508 in Punjab, 44,599 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 16,810 in Balochistan, 27,018 in Islamabad, 6,123 in Azad Kashmir and 4,542 in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Furthermore 2,829 individuals have lost their lives to the epidemic in Punjab 2,861 in Sindh, 1,327 in KP, 161 in Balochistan, 279 in Islamabad, 144 in Azad Kashmir and 95 in GB.

Pakistan has so far conducted 5,216,955 coronavirus tests and 36,929 in the last 24 hours. 330,885 coronavirus patients have recovered in the country whereas 1,677 patients are in critical condition.