Education ministers’ conference to assess prevalence of Omicron variant of coronavirus postponed till next week

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE, Jan 13 (SABAH): The meeting of inter-provincial education ministers scheduled to be held on Thursday has been postponed due to an increase in Covid-19 cases across the country.

Under the chairmanship of Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood, the 34th meeting of the Provincial Education Minister’s Conference (IPEMC) was to be held at 11:00 AM and had aimed to review the rampant increase in the Omicron variant.

According to the statement released by the Ministry of Education, the meeting has been adjourned till next week. No reason was mentioned for the postponement.

The NCOC, which serves as the nerve centre of the government’s unified effort to contain the spread of coronavirus, said in its daily update that 3,019 people tested positive for the infectious disease during the past 24 hours, taking the positivity ratio to 6.12%.

Meanwhile Punjab Education Minister Murad Raas on Thursday spoke about the closure of schools in the country amid speculations that the educational institutions might be shut down due to rising coronavirus cases.

“For all the inquirers whether Schools are closing or NOT? In my opinion, every other activity especially social activity has to be stopped before schools,” the education minister said in a tweet.

The Punjab education minister noted that schools should absolutely be last in the line to close, as the learning losses of the children in the last two years have been unimaginable.

“For all the inquirers whether Schools are closing or NOT? In my opinion, every other activity specially Social activity has to be stopped before schools. Schools should be the absolute last in line to close. The learning losses of our children in the past 2 years – Unimaginable” Dr. Murad Raas tweeted.