PESHAWAR: Educationists and administrative officers in the Elementary and Secondary Education Department see no logic in starting the next academic year from August, as teachers have already completed teaching their courses at the government primary and high schools by the end of February.

The academic year in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa usually starts in April and ends in March. The school administration conducts annual home exams up to grade-8 in March and results are declared on March 31 each academic year.

However, in the light of the federal government’s decision, the E&SE Department has decided to start the upcoming academic year from August instead of April, saying the students’ time had been wasted when schools were closed due to Covid-19 pandemic at the start of the ongoing academic year.

“Due to delay caused by the Covid-19 situation, the academic year 2022-23 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa shall commence from August 1, 2022, and conclude on April 30, 2023, and the academic year 2023-24 shall commence from May 1, 2023,” reads a notification issued by the education department in the start of March.

Teachers fear wastage of time, say they had completed courses in February

A principal of a government high school told Dawn that in the ongoing academic year, classes started in July which continued non-stop for nine months. However, he said that the school administration could not take examinations from the students due to ‘illogical’ decision of the government.

A science teacher in a government school told Dawn that he had completed teaching his courses at the end of January. “I have completed courses of three subjects, including chemistry and Physics for class-10, and general science for grade-8,” he said.

As per the school principal’s directives, he said, the teachers had now engaged their students in different activities like revision of their courses, weekly tests, etc.

Several principals of the government schools said the E&SE Department had not communicated to the schools in writing about annual home examinations.

However, a district education officer said that a senior officer of education department had recently verbally communicated to the district education officers to issue directives to the government schools to conduct examinations by the end of May.

In plain areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the summer vacation usually starts in government schools in June.

“The teachers usually send their students for summer vacation with proper homework of the subjects taught in April and May, to be revised during the vacation,” a teacher said.

However, he said, if they started the summer vacation at the start of June in the instant case, they would not be able to give homework to the students because they would not have started their next classes and thus the students would waste three months of summer vacation.

School Officers Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, president Samiullah Khalil told Dawn that the association also had reservations about the start of academic year from August as it would waste precious time of the students.

He said that the office-bearers of the teachers association raised this issue with the recently-posted secretary education in a meeting and demanded to revisit the decision of starting the academic year from August.

He said it was clear in the education department’s notification that the next academic year would start from August, but it had not given any direction when the ongoing academic year would be ended.

He said the association had also demanded of the government to hold annual home examinations in April. However, he said, the association could take its own decision of holding examinations in April in the larger interest of students.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2022