The Punjab government on Tuesday announced closure of all public and private sector schools and colleges in Lahore for 10 days in a bid to counter the “dengue threat”. The government has announced that the schools and colleges will re-open on Sept 26.
Meanwhile, private schools’ associations have announced that they would organise anti-dengue spray in their institutes and keep them opened. In case of resistance from the government, they have stated that they will move court.
On the other hand, parents have criticised the Punjab government’s abrupt decision of closing schools. A concerned parent, a doctor by profession, while talking to Dawn said it was strange that the government took such an abrupt decision and closed schools without considering the fact that the dengue attacked either early in the morning or in the evening.
Stating that the government had already suspended the holding of assemblies before the start of the schools, he suggested that the government could have opened and closed schools and colleges a bit late and there would have been no threat of dengue during 8am to 2pm or 9am to 3pm.
Rashida, a mother, said students’ precious school days were being wasted every year in the name of floods and dengue, and regretted that the government just failed to take measures to counter such emergencies effectively.
She asked what the government would do after 10 days and what would be the guarantee that the dengue would be controlled during these holidays.
Meanwhile, Punjab Education Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman said the schools and colleges would re-open in Lahore district on Sept 26 and it would take administrative action against private schools’ managements who would try to open schools before that.