KARACHI: The moment of truth about the confusion over the conclusion of summer vacations arrived on Monday morning when those schools which were adamant on reopening on Aug 3 kept their gates shut.

“Well, we decided this very late, after midnight on Sunday. We are grateful to Secretary for Education Dr Fazlulluah Pechuho, who heard us out after the holiday extension announcement and sent up another proposal requesting to go back to the Steering Committee’s original plan of reopening schools on Aug 3. But the chief minister put his foot down saying that they won’t go back and forth on the new decision of reopening on Aug 11,” Khalid Shah, president of the All Private Schools Management Association, old Dawn on Monday.

“What made us change our mind was Commissioner of Karachi Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, who pointed out that our not bending to the new announcement was causing undue to tension to parents and the children, of course. Not to mention the huge confusion about whether to send children to school to keep them at home.

It would also disturb studies. So after he put it that way, we were also forced to think again and take back our decision,” he added.

Sharaf uz Zaman of the Private School Management Association (PSMA) also said they changed their mind to reopen schools on Monday for the good of the children and to keep the air clear for things had heated up real bad. “Yes, the commissioner’s words also had an impact and we didn’t want to rock the boat so much that the students would fall off into the ocean,” he told Dawn.

“Such decisions come from politicians while we are only educationists. Thing had become too heated and we thought it better to cool it. Sadly, the children are disappointed. Since we took back our decision of reopening on Monday very late in the night many parents didn’t know about it and sent the children to school. When the children found out that the school was closed they looked disheartened. They wanted to know what was going to happen to their Independence Day practice,” he said.

“Although school is now officially reopening on Tuesday, Aug 11, I may still request the education department to allow us at least seven days to practise for our Aug 14 programmes,” he concluded.

Many other schools, too, which had intended to reopen on Monday took back their decision. Mama Parsi Girls High School and BVS Parsi High School, which even had a message put up on their website about reopening on Monday, remained closed.

As for the missionary schools in Karachi, they had already announced earlier that they were fine with the government’s decision of extending the holidays by a week in view of the heavy rains and devastation spread due to them in Sindh even though there was no flooding in Karachi.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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