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New academic year from April 1: Meeting told
KARACHI, Jan 13: In a detailed meeting on Saturday, the stakeholders of
the provincial education department discussed the decision of the department's
steering committee about the start of the new academic year four months in
advance of the schedule and decided to stick to the powerful committee's
decision, insiders in the department said.
The consultative meeting,
which continued for a couple of hours in the committee room of the education
department on Saturday, consisted of representatives from private schools,
missionary schools, the board of intermediate education Karachi,
non-governmental organisations dealing with educational matters, educationists
and senior government officials, with caretaker Education Minister Shujaat Ali
Baig in the chair.
The education department withheld notification of the
rescheduling of the new academic session and decided to issue it after a
consensus decision in the meeting.
The sources said all the stakeholders
discussed the confusion created about the rescheduling of the new academic year
on April 1 from this year threadbare until they reached a consensus decision to
start the new academic year four months in advance from this year as per the
steering committee's decision.
The main hurdle, which is being conceived
as the only obstacle in the rescheduling of the new academic year, was the
provision of schoolbooks on time. The meeting realized that textbooks could not
be provided by April 1 due to limited time and because of general elections next
month. However, it was decided to provide used books to the students until new
ones were published and duly provided to them.
"The education department
is responsible for providing textbooks to the students as soon as possible and
if the books' printing gets delayed by a fortnight or a month, till then the
students would be provided with used books to prevent any possibility of their
academic loss," a source quoted the decision as taken by the participants of the
meeting.
Trial and error
Earlier, sources said the meeting
was informed about the background of the past changes in the academic year. The
schedule was first changed to August in 1992 due to the pressure of the World
Bank, but a couple of years later it was again rescheduled for April 1 given the
hardships the new schedule had caused, specially to the students of areas with
sizzling summers. The steering committee again revised the academic year to
August in Jan, 2006, but realizing its fault, it yet again revised it this
year.
"The academic year should start in April because it suits our
demographic conditions," asserted a participant of the meeting.
Sources
said after a consensus decision, a formal notification for rescheduling of the
new academic year would be issued in a couple of days.
The steering
committee, while deciding about advancing the new academic year, had said the
decision was taken in the larger interest of the students, teachers and parents.
It also decided that the summer vacations would be reduced to two months as had
been the case two years ago, before a previous steering committee's decision
stretched them to two-and-a-half months.
The education department had
decided to review its decision about the new academic year after it received
reservations from many stakeholders, including the publishers of textbooks,
parents, students and most of the private schools.
Sources said the
authorities had already cancelled their tender for the procurement of paper for
publishing of textbooks while printing of schoolbooks could not be possible
owing to the fact that the bank accounts of the Sindh Textbook Board (STB) had
been seized while the authorities are yet to reach an agreement with the
publishers.
The STB's accounts were seized after the board's building was
ransacked by miscreants during the week-long violence which started soon after
the assassination of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.
Sources said the
publishers needed at least three months to publish textbooks for the next
academic year, which was not possible if the session starts on April 1 given the
fact that February would be the month of elections, while cumbersome formalities
were bound to take ample time to be completed.
Mr Baig said he had asked
the STB officials to submit a report about the actual state of affairs regarding
its preparedness for the new academic session. Dawn
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| Education News | | Updated: 24 May, 2012 |
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