Parents, students and private educational institutions have hailed the government's decision to revive the old schedule of academic session, saying it would give impetus to the students' performance.
The 13th inter-provincial ministerial conference held on May 9 unanimously decided that academic session, from next year, would start from March or April to make it more suitable to local requirements and the country's weather conditions.
Ilyas Khan, a father of a student said that the decision was a logic-based and would have positive impact on the students' performance, adding under the current academic schedule students were subject to appear in exams at a time when the weather was rather hot.
"The government's decision for revival of old schedule of academic session is a step in right direction, weather conditions definitely affect students' performance and then look the current wave of load-shedding that matters much," he observed.
Shafiq Butt another parent said under the current academic session students wasted three-month long summer vacations as they were free from studies and to start new classes in September after taking exams in May or June.
"Three-month holidays is the only period when parents can help their children in studies, while now parents are helpless as their children have not started new classes and completed the previous level, children have nothing to do but to play pranks at home", he remarked.
Zahid Hussain, a student, said the government had started fluffing its promise to ensure quality education by bringing reforms in education sector, adding the particular decision about revival of old schedule of academic session was a good start in that direction.
"The government has scored points by announcing to start academic session from March and April, it won hearts of parents who had been asking for better learning environment for their children over the entire period of the past government, but to no avail", the student said. President All Pakistan Private Schools Owners Association Malik Abrar when contacted said that private sector was thankful to the Minister for Education Ashan Iqbal for fulfilling the long-standing demand of the citizens.
With start of academic session from March and April, he said the students would have maximum time to study and would be in a better position to do well in their exams. "The previous government had curtailed the studies duration to six months only by starting the academic session from September, which created several problems for students as well as parents".
He also asked the government to carry out audit of taxes collected by the self-financed regulatory authority from private educational institutions, demanding these funds should be spent for welfare of these institutions.
The civil society also supported the government steps to improve standard of public sector education in order to make quality education accessible to every citizen of the country irrespective of sex and social status.
They said the proposed initiatives in the education sector would help foster creativity, innovation, pursuit of excellence and integrity and promote culture of team work among students in the present era of knowledge revolution.
They also demanded early implementation of the minister's decision for resolution of teachers' problems, saying it should regularise the services of the contract-based teachers to improve their performance.
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