PESHAWAR: A technical glitch has surfaced in switching over of the students of private and government schools to each other due to disparity in their academic calendar, according to sources.

“There was no such issue prior to the implementation of semester system in government schools,” the principal of a government high school told Dawn.

Last year, elementary and secondary education department replaced the British-era annual examination system in government schools up to grade 8 with the two-semester system. The new system was introduced to lessen burden on students and teachers and end student learning losses due to months-long vacations.

However, private schools have not implemented the government decision of semester system rather they are still following the annual examination system.

Expert calls for across the board enforcement of semester system

In the government schools of summer zone, the academic year will commence on Sept 1, with the fall semester running from Sept 1 to Dec 31. The spring semester will begin on January 16 and end on May 31.

In the winter zone, the academic year will start on March 1, the spring semester will last from March 1 to June 30 and the fall semester will be from August 1 to Dec 22. Contrary to the semester system in government schools, the academic year starts in April and ends in March in private schools.

“Often many students of private schools used to get admission in government schools for several reasons when there was uniformity in the academic calendar,” the headmaster of a government high school told Dawn. The major reason used to be poverty as parents of such students were unable to pay tuition fees to private schools, he added.

He said that switching over of students from private to government school was also result of poor quality of education in private schools. He claimed that only few chains of private schools were providing quality education to students and the rest of them were not performing well.

The headmaster said that a student, who passed 6th grade examination in a private school that declared their results in March year and started academic year in April, could not take admission in 7th grade in a government school, if he wanted so, as the academic year was still in progress and the new one would start in September.

He said that courses in government schools would be in progress in April and would complete at the end of May.

Another headmaster of a government school said that several parents approached the school for admitting their children but they refused to enrol their children when they were explained the disparity in the academic calendar. He said that parents would have to wait till September if they wanted to enrol their children in government schools.

Talking to Dawn, an academician lauded education department for introducing semester system in schools but he demanded that it should be enforced across the board.

He suggested that semester system should be introduced at matric and intermediate level that would not only lessen academic burden on students but would also minimise the chances of unfair means being used in examination system.

President School Officers Association Samiullah Khalil told this scribe that government must ensure uniformity in academic calendar in the larger interest of students.

“Due to disparity in the academic calendar, neither we have books nor new classrooms for newcomers,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2026