ISLAMABAD: Summer vacations for students this year have been reduced to two weeks starting from July 18 to Aug 1.

This was notified by the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), which supervises 423 public sector schools and colleges in Islamabad.

“Summer vacation will be observed in all educational institutions working under the ambit of Federal Directorate of Education w.e.f 18-07-2021 to 01-08-2021,” it read.

Another notification while elaborating the promotion policy stated that even though all students from classes prep to seven will be promoted without appearing in annual examination, four formative classroom assessments per subject of every student shall be kept in the school’s record duly verified by the respective head of the institution.

In-house examination of class 8 shall be conducted by respective head of institution as per the centralised date sheet and minimum pass percentage achieved in each subject shall be 35pc for this academic year only, while no student shall be retained in the previous class whatsoever the result maybe.

It said students with 55pc aggregate in class 8 exams shall have unrestricted choice to opt for either the science group or the humanities group. The results of class 8 will be announced on July 30/31 and the new academic session will begin from August 2.

Furthermore, a spokesperson for the Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (Peira), Zafar Yousafzai, said the authority had not issued any notification regarding summer vacation yet.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2021