LAHORE: The Punjab School Education Department on Monday extended the winter holidays of schools by another week (until Jan 12) as the weather turned wet and windy with the direction for all the public and private schools to reopen on Jan 13.

An official handout on Monday morning, preceded by a tweet by the provincial minister, read: “In the wake of weather conditions, the winter vacations are hereby extended w.e.f. 07. 01. 2020 to 12. 01. 2020 in all Public & Private schools in Punjab. All schools (Public and Private) shall re-open on 13th January, 2020”.

Earlier in the day, Punjab Minister for School Education Murad Raas had tweeted: “Due to extreme weather conditions, winter vacation has been increased till January 12th, 2020.”

Most of the schools in the province reopened on Monday as per the earlier notification. Attendance, however, remained scant as continued drizzle and drop in temperature alarmed parents about the potential effects of the weather.

On Sunday, a fresh westerly system, which had entered the country a day earlier, caused rain in different parts of the country. The Meteorological Office had predicted widespread rains with snowfall in the upper parts of the country. The spell came in the middle of extreme weather spell across the country which had taken temperature much below the freezing point in some of its parts.

Even Monday rain brought the temperature down by five degree Celsius in the maximum temperature with likelihood to keep weather cold for the next 24 hours before the current system clears.

The climate effect has taken a heavy toll on educational institutions this year because the schools had to be closed twice in November as the fog level increased to dangerous level. Luckily, immediate rains had cleared weather within two to three days and schools closure did not extend much.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2020