KARACHI, May 23: Faced with growing opposition to its decision to change the years-old summer vacation schedule from June-July to July-August, the Sindh education department has decided to approach the Sindh chief minister to get his consent to allay concerns of students, parents, school managements and teachers, it emerged on Wednesday.

Sources in the Sindh education department said the authorities had made up their mind to give benefit of the delay to aggrieved quarters in the issuance of a notification related to changes in the summer vacation schedule.

A source told Dawn that the education department was considering various new options, including granting permission to schools to vary from the newly announced vacation schedule, declaration of two separate summer vacation schedules for schools in Karachi and those functioning in other districts of Sindh or observance of the old June-July vacation schedule in 2012 with a declaration that all private and government schools would be bound to observe the new schedule of vacation (July-August) from 2013 onwards till further order.

However, an academic figure, requesting anonymity, said the education department’s idea to invite applications from private schools finding difficulties in observing summer vacation in July and August due to their own “genuine reasons” was an ill-advised move and would pave the way for discriminations and exploitations.

“If the government realises that things have not moved accordingly for the changes in the vacation then it should have a blanket decision of putting off the enforcement of the new schedule till mid-2013 in case of all the government and private schools, either run under the Cambridge or the matric systems,” the academician observed. This could be a viable way to ensure harmony and seriousness in academic affairs throughout the province.

Keeping in view the hot and humid days of June and extreme monsoon pattern in the interior of Sindh, an official remarked that the government should go for a vacation starting in June and extended up to mid-August for areas other than Karachi.

Meanwhile, a delegation of certain private schools met the education secretary, Siddiq Memon, on Wednesday and apprised him of their problems regarding implementing the July-August summer vacation.

The group requested the secretary to have a lenient view and make the enforcement of the July-August vacation optional in their case, said a source privy to the meeting and added that the visitors had committed that they would observe the vacation positively in line with the education department’s notification of May 18, 2012 next year and onward.

A parent told Dawn that the belated announcement of the new summer vacation schedule had upset his family’s plan to go to upcountry to see their relatives in the first week of June. He urged the government to revisit its decision about the new vacation months.

Another parent said that different schedules of summer vacation would increase the problems of families. One of his sons taking education under the Cambridge system would have to wait full June for the vacation of his other ward who was studying under the matric system and whose vacations would begin from July, he said, adding that practically the new schedule had curtailed the two-month vacation to a mere 20 days.

Principal of National High School Najma Mushir said the belated vacation notification had confused the students and teachers very much.

She said it was not possible to revise the whole academic schedules and adjust the changes at this juncture of time. Schools running under the matric and Cambridge or AKUEB programmes simultaneously would have to undergo enormous problems, she added.

While holding that the July-August vacation idea appeared not to be carrying genuine things, the principal said that schools would get very little time under the new schedule of the vacation for carrying out yearly maintenance, repairs of premises and furniture requirements, in addition to the troublesome process of collection of August’s fees in advance from parents who had already paid the June and July fees of their wards two to three months ago.

Education secretary Memon told Dawn on Wednesday that representatives of various school managements were complaining against the late notification of the new summer vacation schedule and desired some relaxations in this regard.

He said that even implementation of the new schedule was not any problem in the case of government schools across the province and private schools located in Hyderabad and other districts of the province. However, the problem of enforcing the new schedule in Karachi was not confined to just 20 or 30 or some so-called big or elite schools as there were many other institutions that were also sounding their grievances in that regard, he added.

According to him, the education department had in principle decided to receive applications from all those educational institutions willing to observe summer vacation in June-July this year.

He said the department was moving a summary to the chief minister, with a couple of new proposals and if the CM approved them, every private school management would be in a position to apply and request the directorate of private schools to make the new summer vacation schedule “optional” for 2012 for them.