Sindh Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah said on Tuesday that schools across the province will open from August 23 (Monday).

Announcing the decision after a meeting of the steering committee, the education minister said: "The decision has been taken to open schools from Monday to continue the education journey of children."

He said schools would be opened with 50 per cent attendance and subject to strict compliance with Covid-19 standard operating procedures.

Additionally, only schools that could assure 100pc vaccination of their teachers by Monday would be allowed to open. Parents will also have to submit their vaccination certificates at schools, Shah said.

"Sudden [and] random PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests will be conducted as well," the education minister said.

He added that the effects of 9th and 10th Muharram on the Covid-19 situation would be reviewed on Friday (Aug 20).

Shah said that all government employees had also received Covid-19 jabs owing to fear of their salaries being stopped.

The Sindh government had closed schools across the province on July 24 due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases although it had said that exams would take place according to schedule.

Last week, the education minister said schools would remain closed till August 19.

A working committee was also formed last week to implement the decisions, Shah said, adding that it would look at other issues as well such as the syllabus. It has representation from the education, health, home departments and other related institutions.

The education minister said Covid-19 had caused a lot of loss to academia, with the number of students dropping from 4.5 million to 3.9m.

The minister also expressed his thoughts on the Single National Curriculum and questioned why local heroes shouldn't be taught when the people wanted to learn about them.

"If we want to teach our children about Sindh, then why shouldn't we?

"I'm surprised at [Punjab Chief Minister Usman] Buzdar and [Balochistan Chief Minister] Jam Kamal. How did they give [decisions about] their rights to others," Shah said.