ISLAMABAD: Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood on Friday announced that the government would start opening educational institutes phase-wise from Jan 18.

“No student will be passed without exam this year. Whereas, the decision to resume classes of 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grades on Jan 18 has been upheld,” said Shafqat Mahmood while addressing media after inter-provincial education ministers meeting in Islamabad.

He said classes from primary to 8^th grades would be opened on Feb 1 now, instead of Jan 25. While universities and the rest of the educational institutes would also open on Jan 1, he said.

The education minister said that the schedule was announced after they comprehensively reviewed the situation of coronavirus in National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) meeting. However, he said, next week all the situation would be reviewed again.

He said those associated with education realized that children were bearing educational loss.

He said the health experts had relayed that the positivity ratio would reduce after closure of educational institutes, therefore they took the decision of shutting down the institutes in Nov last year.

“The rate of positive cases of coronavirus slightly dropped to 6.10 percent on Jan 14, which was at 7.9 percent on Nov 26,” he said.