Universities across Sindh to reopen on 23rd

KARACHI: The Sindh government said on Wednesday that universities across the province would be reopened on August 23. An announcement to this effect was made by Minister for Universities & Educational Boards Muhammad Ismail Rahoo.

The provincial minister said that the universities would follow a set of standard operating procedures against the spread of coronavirus infections after they were reopened. The universities and institutions of vocational training would be reopened with 50 per cent attendance of students. The provincial minister also said that all the teaching and non-teaching staff of the universities would be required to get vaccinated against the coronavirus infection. The university students would also be required to have received their coronavirus vaccines. Rahoo advised the teaching and non-teaching staff as well as the students of the universities to carry with them the proof that they had received their coronavirus vaccines before they attend the institutions. It is worth mentioning here that a day earlier, the Steering Committee of the Sindh Education Department had also decided to reopen schools across the province on August 23 with 50 per cent attendance.

The steering committee had decided that only those schools would be allowed to reopen whose 100 per cent of the teaching and non-teaching staff had been vaccinated against Covid-19.

Talking to media persons later, Sindh Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah had said that a decision had been reached to reopen schools on Monday to ensure the continuity of education of the students.

He said that the enrolment of the students in the schools of the province had decreased from 4.5 million to 4.1 million during the one and a half years of the coronavirus pandemic, adding that the situation posed a serious challenge for the educational authorities of Sindh. It is worth mentioning here that the educational institutions in Sindh had been closed last month when a partial lockdown had been ordered by the provincial government, mostly in the urban areas of the province, against the spread of the highly lethal Delta variant of the coronavirus.