KARACHI: All pre-primary, primary and middle classes across Sindh will be resumed from Monday (Sept 28) under the standard operating procedures (SOPs) prescribed by the government.

This was stated by Sindh Education and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani at a press conference held at the Sindh Assembly building here on Friday.

The minister said he had postponed only the second phase of the reopening of schools for a week, but people mistook his announcement. Now all classes would go on as normal.

Universities would also be reopening for their fall semesters and there would be 100 per cent educational activities in Sindh, he said.

He warned that all government and private educational institutions would be bound to follow the SOPs and those violating would face strict action. Parents, too, should keep a watchful eye on their school-going children to make sure that they were wearing masks, observing distance, washing their hands and using sanitisers. Teachers were supposed to spread awareness about the SOPs before the start of each class, he added.

“For the last 10 days, I, as well as officers of education department, have been visiting public and private educational institutions on a daily basis. We have been issuing instructions for the implementation of the SOPs wherever we noticed something amiss. We also sealed two educational institutions. At one place there emerged a Covid-19 case and at another place, classes for small children were being held and that, too, without following the SOPs,” he said.

“I have always appealed to parents to prepare their children for the full implementation of the SOPs and try to pick and drop their children by themselves, instead of making them use vans or schools’ transport facility,” he said.

“They should also keep a check on their children’s schools,” he said.

The minister warned that if any shortcomings were found, there would be strict action, including heavy fines, suspension of school’s registration and lodging of FIR for violation of the prescribed code of conduct.

“We have left it to the educational institutions to see how they can curtail classes, plan shifts if they have too many students, etc,” he said, adding that the health minister’s statement regarding the growing number of Covid-19 cases was also one of his concerns.

MQM-P’s rally termed ‘drama’

In reply to a question about Thursday’s rally of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), he said “it was a drama “.

“It is clear to me that the MQM-P are not patriots, but fascists. Even today, the MQM-P is behaving and talking like it used to do in the past. They still do the politics of spreading hatred. But the Pakistan Peoples Party will soon hold a ‘love rally’ in response to the MQM-P’s hate speech,” he said.

The Muttahida was the biggest trader of votes among Urdu-speaking voters, and had done that in the past as well when they wanted their own chief minister, he said.

Gas crisis

Answering a question about the ongoing gas crisis and federal ministers’ blaming the Sindh government for it, Saeed Ghani said there was a flour crisis, there was a petrol crisis, there was inflation etc in the country but from the prime minister to the federal ministers, everyone blamed Sindh. “Sindh is producing 70 per cent of the entire country’s gas and still our province is suffering from the biggest gas crisis. We are suffering a worst kind of loadshedding,” he said.

“According to the Constitution, the province which produces gas has the first right to it, but the hostility of the federal government towards Sindh has pushed the people of Sindh into gas and electricity crises with up to 14 to 16 hours of loadshedding being resorted to,” he said.

Hike in medicines prices

In reply to another question, he sarcastically said the prices of medicines had been increased by 292 per cent. In a few days, the prime minister himself would take notice of the hike, he said.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2020