KARACHI: The summer vacation in all education institutions will be observed from June 1 to Aug 1 as all schools and colleges will reopen on Aug 3, Monday.

This was decided by the Sindh education department’s steering committee as it met in the committee room of the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday to work out a schedule for vacation, academic sessions and examinations for 2015.

Presided over by senior minister for education and literacy Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, the steering committee also decided that the winter vacation would be observed from Dec 22 to 31. The other holidays will be Kashmir Day on Feb 5, Pakistan Day on March 23, Labour Day on May 1, Shab-i-Mairaj on May 16, Shab-i-Baraat on June 3, Yaum-i-Ali on July 8, Shab-i-Qadar on July 15, Eid-ul-Fitr on July 18 and 19, Independence Day on Aug 14, Eid-ul-Azha on Sept 22 and 23, Ashura on Oct 22 and 23, Iqbal Day on Nov 9, Urs of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai on Nov 25, Chehlum on Dec 22 and 23 and Quaid-i-Azam Day on Dec 25. The first holiday of 2016 before the next meeting of the steering committee would be Eid-i-Miladun Nabi (PBUH) holiday on Jan 4, 2016.

It was also stated that in all educational institutions of Sindh, one week might be reserved for sports and other co-curricular activities during the academic year.

Meanwhile, the school academic session will begin on April 1. For O- and A-Level schools, it will commence on Aug 1 and for colleges on Aug 2.

Admissions to class nine will begin on April 1 and admission to first year in Karachi will be made through the centralised admission policy of the education and literacy department from Sept 7 and the admission to class 12 may start during the vacation to be completed by Sept 1.

Regarding steering committee decisions, the education minister said the students from class one to three would be automatically promoted to the next level. Still there would be written examinations for students of those classes at the local level for the sake of creating a sense of examinations in them.

He said examinations for up to class eight would be completed by March 15 and results would be announced by March 31 as theory examination of SSC- I and II would commence on April 7 would be followed by practicals.

He said results of SSC-II would be announced by July 15 by all boards of Sindh and the board of secondary education Karachi would announce it by July 31. The result of class nine examinations would be announced within 60 days after the announcement of matric exam results.

Theory examination of HSC- I and II would begin on April 28 and the result of HSC-II would be announced by all boards of Sindh on Aug 31 while the board of intermediate education Karachi would announce the results by Sept 15.

Mr Khuhro said the results of class 11 would be announced 60 days after the announcement of class 12 results. And all public sector universities of Sindh would conduct the degree examinations according to their own schedule to be communicated to the departments. School and college buildings might be used as centres for examinations only and nothing other than that. Also all the examining boards in Sindh would try to reduce the number of examination centres.

He said all heads of institutions and boards must implement the condition of 75 per cent attendance before accepting a place of study as an examination centre. All teachers would be required to follow the rules in the case of any cheating by the students during exams. All heads of institutions should act as internal superintendents and non-teaching staff should not be assigned invigilation duties in schools.

To curb copy culture, he said, they would also consider installing CCTV cameras in examination centres. Another meeting with officials concerned on the matter would be convened soon.

Mr Khuhro said that to increase the enrolment of students in schools, double shifts would be started in each district of Sindh and for smooth running of affairs some schools would also be handed over to the Sindh Education Foundation and the private sector.

The meeting was also attended by the education secretary, all boards’ chairmen, the DG for colleges in Sindh and the director of schools.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2015

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