LAHORE: The Punjab School Education Department on Thursday announced two-month summer vacation from June 1 to July 31 in all schools.

The department issued a notification stating “All Public and Private Schools throughout Punjab shall remain closed from June 1 to July 31 for summer vacation.”

It states that chief executive officers of the district education authorities and the heads shall manage the distribution of homework and books to the students during the break.

It also directed the District Registering Authority to advise private schools to reduce school timings until 11am from May 27 to 31 with all necessary precautionary measures to protect children from heatwaves.

However, the department has notified that the academic session for all the public and private schools for 2022-23 will be observed from Aug 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023.

As the summer vacation will start on June 1, children will be without assignments for the next classes in the summer break.

As the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board has stopped the printing of books under the Single National Curriculum for middle classes, students will not have books to get homework from the teachers. Many textbooks are completely unavailable in the market adding to the woes of the students and teachers.

Punjab Teachers Union leader Rana Liaqat told Dawn the books were not available to assign homework for summer vacation to the students.

He said the government had advised the students to collect books from the students who passed their class and would assign general types of homework, including grammar and history related subjects to the students during the vacation.

He said the teachers would collect the books from the previous classes and were also facing a shortage.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2022