From Abid Usman
LAHORE: The government of Punjab on Tuesday — expanding on its previous order — closed all the educational institutions up to the higher secondary level in the province from tomorrow until the end of the week, shifting them to an online mode, as the province tackles the hazardous smog situation prevalent for the past few weeks.
The recent smog situation was declared a “calamity” in Punjab last month. Schools have been closed in the province’s main divisions — Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Multan — until November 17 in a bid to lower children’s exposure to pollution.
Separately, the public has been barred from entering public parks, zoos, playgrounds, and museums until November 17 to reduce public exposure to smog.
A day ago, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) representative in Pakistan called for urgent and greater efforts to reduce air pollution, noting that over 11 million children under five years of age were exposed to smog in the worst affected districts of Punjab. The province’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in a notification issued today, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com that “All the educational institutions […] up to higher secondary level shall remain closed and will shift to online mode with effect from Nov 13 within […] DG Khan, Bahawalpur, Sahiwal, Sargodha and Rawalpindi divisions […] till Nov 17.”
Punjab Education Minister Rana Sikandar Hayat also announced the closure of schools during a press conference today, saying that the “decision was made in light of the complaints received from the district.”
“This drastic decision had to be taken to protect children from the deadly effects,” he said, “There is a sense of educational loss, but the decision to close educational institutions is being taken out of compulsion.
“In view of the difficulties in online teaching, an alternative strategy is being quickly brought in,” the minister added.
He also appealed to the public to cooperate and do what was in their capacity to help the government deal with this issue.
Separately, all government offices were ordered to shift half of their workforce to online mode to reduce traffic load on roads to prevent the worsening of the smog situation due to vehicular emissions. “The physical presence of human resource(s) of offices in your jurisdiction may kindly be reduced to 50pc by shifting them to online mode/work from home,” the EPA said in a separate notification issued today.
In the order issued on Tuesday, which is seen by Dawn.com, the Punjab EPA directed all the administrative secretaries, as well as heads of attached departments and semi-government/autonomous bodies, to reduce the physical presence of human resources by 50 per cent.
According to the notification, the situation was likely to prevail for a few weeks, adding that local pollution contributing factors, especially vehicular emissions, may further exacerbate the conditions.
“Hence, the situation warrants to specify safeguards to reduce the number of vehicles on roads in order to control air pollution, through preparation and implementation of contingency plans,” the notification said.
The EPA also called for inter-departmental meetings to be convened in an online mode unless the physical presence of participants was “extremely necessary”.
