KARACHI: Following the education department’s steering committee’s meeting on Saturday, Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani called a press conference in the committee room of Sindh Assembly to inform about the decisions they had made regarding the academic calendar 2021.

It has been decided that all education institutions will be opening with strict observance of SOPs from February 1.

Examinations for class nine and 10 will be held from July 1 to 15 instead of the usual time of the year ie March and April, while the examinations for 11th and 12th will be held from July 28 to August 16.

Their results will be expected around Sept 15. But before that, examinations for nursery to class VIII will be held from June 7 while their results are expected by June 26. As for universities, it was said that this year university admissions would be held after October 15. The next academic year will commence from Aug 3.

According to the decision of the steering committee, the duration of examinations has been decreased from three hours to two hours this year.

“These decisions have been taken in the light of the report of the sub-committee formed by the steering committee earlier. The curriculum has been reduced by 40 per cent this year due to the coronavirus. The structure of examinations for classes 9 to 12 [has] been changed too, and now these examinations will be of a shorter duration of two hours with 50 per cent multiple choice questions, 30 per cent short and 20 per cent long answer questions so that the students can complete their paper within the duration,” he said.

It is also quite concerning that so far 1.7pc of Karachi’s colleges and 5.5pc of schools here have reported positive cases of Covid-19.

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2021