The National Education Council (NEC), which is a body of private school owners, has criticized the government’s decision to close schools down for the third time in one year due to the situation which has been termed as ‘the third wave’ of the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan.
NEC Chairman, Nazar Hussain, addressed a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club alongside other office-bearers and declared the decision as an anti-education measure.
He questioned the logic behind the closing of schools when all the other sectors including the banks, the judicial system, the bazaars, and the trading centers were operating without any Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
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Hussain quoted a health expert saying that children are safer from the coronavirus at schools than they are at home or outside, and added that the frequent closures will affect their education, which is why he had termed the move as anti-education.
He urged the government to review the “anti-people and anti-education decisions”, and demanded education cards similar to the health cards.
It is the constitutional duty of the government to provide free education to people, thus, the government should provide education cards to the underprivileged like that of health cards.
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The NEC Chairman declared that the pandemic has destroyed the education sector and that 6,000 small private schools had to be closed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because the government had not provided the schools a bailout package.
He further demanded the government to pay six months’ rent to the schools functioning in rented buildings to save them from closure.