Schools Closed Down!

It is more than two weeks that schools are closed all over Lahore.
Seriousness and gravity of this statement is may be hard to understand for someone who is not from our region...

This unexpected situation caught us off guard when we parents in Pakistan were considering that academic year is started and kids are set for this year at least.

To our knowledge these decisions are for our own safety and unavoidable too, however we are totally lost with no solution or even a time line in view.

Our concerns are very real and based on our experiences . As we talk about education here,most of it is provided through privately run schools and usually governments, federal or provincial have no strict control on them .

Low end fee schools are situated commonly in densely populated areas, where play grounds are not possible to have.

All private schools low to high range fee bracket charge non refundable registration,which is usually equal to three months fee money from parents at the time of the admissions.

Most children do take extra tuition's from tuition centers all over Pakistan.
Curriculum or syllabus is just casually covered,and not much reinforcement is done to the subjects, as too many subjects are introduced to keep their status in school community.
These schools charge monthly tuition fees between 1000 to up to 20,000 or in some cases even more.
All fees are paid in advance and in quarterly or six monthly installments at a time.
Text books are purchased by parents.
Stationary is purchased by parents.
Winter summer,sports uniforms are purchased by parents.
Lab, swimming or computer classes are provided at extra fees.

Academic year starts in more responsible school in mid August, or in most of rest on September 1st.

This year due to our load shedding issue government of Punjab extended summer break for all schools to September 1st,that means Ramadan and school started at the same time.
During Ramadan , classes got shorter and schedule was followed with no Physical Education and other activity classes...

Then Eid break came along.October was the month children were suppose to get on track and get situated in their classes and with their teachers...


School closing is adding to our sense of insecurity more than ever before and from so many different aspects too.
Where most parents spend a big fraction of their income on their kids education from transport to sports all funded by parents... then frustration over this scenario is obvious....If security situation lingers who will make up for their lost study time....or who will pay for the security expenses of lower or middle class school kids... school are definitely going to shift these forced expense on parents... then we may have more drop outs and more parent who lose hope every day to provide a respectable living for their kids....