COVID vaccination to begin at schools and colleges tomorrow

KARACHI: Vaccination against Covid-19 at schools and colleges of Sindh will start tomorrow (Monday).

This was stated by Sindh Education Minister Syed Sardar Shah on Saturday as he chaired a meeting at the Directorate of Inspection & Registration of Private Institutions Sindh.

The meeting was attended by School Education Secretary Akbar Leghari, College Education Secretary Syed Khalid Haider Shah and other officers.

After deliberating over a suggestion of the health department, the meeting decided that all the students enrolled in grades 9 and 10, and above would be offered vaccination against Covid-19 and the consent certificate would be obtained from the parents in this regard for the vaccination of their children.

Addressing the private school owners and parents, the minister said that if administrators and parents of privately managed schools did not want another closure of schools, they should support this vaccination drive.

Shah said vaccination had brought life back to normal in developed countries around the world. All parents’ organisations and private school associations would be taken into confidence so that the risk of educational disruption could be minimized, he added.

The meeting decided to review the registration of private schools and the facilities being provided by them to their students.

A mechanism would be set up by completing the database of all the private schools, it was decided.

It was also approved that a team would be formed for the inspection of private schools. The team members would also obtain the salary record of the private schools’ teachers to ensure that they were paying minimum salary fixed by the Sindh government for all the private workers.

“I won’t allow private schools to expel children from their institutions due to delayed payment of fees,” Shah said, adding that according to the law, all private schools must provide free education to 10 per cent of the children.

He said the Sindhi Language Authority would provide training in Sindhi to teachers of private schools so that they could teach Sindhi. “We want to create harmony by promoting Sindhi language as medium of education.”