KARACHI: Summer holidays in schools will be extended by two weeks in southern Pakistan due to scorching heat, affecting more than 100,000 educational institutions, said an education official.
Pakistan is vulnerable to extreme weather conditions because of climate change, including heatwaves that are hotter and more frequent and monsoons that are longer and heavier.
“We decided to close schools for an additional 14 days for the children’s well-being,” Atif Vighio, a spokesperson at the education department in Sindh province, told AFP.
The load-shedding that happens frequently in Pakistan is also aggravating the problems of the citizens. The load-shedding varies from city to city, but in rural areas of Sindh, it can last for more than 12 hours a day.
“As a teacher, I am worried about how I will complete the curriculum, but as a mother, I am concerned about kids going to school in this heat,” a public school teacher told said. “It is the load-shedding we are worried about, not just the heat.”
According to the government estimates more than 26 million children are out of school because of poverty. Pakistan struggled with heatwaves in the months of May and June, with temperatures reaching more than 50 degrees Celsius in rural Sindh.
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Authorities in the province of Punjab’s summer vacations started one week earlier in May to save children from the extreme heat.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF said more than three-quarters of children in the region of South Asia or 460 million are exposed to extreme heat for at least 83 days per year.
Pakistan despite contributing less than one percent to global gas emissions, has experienced acute weather-related disasters in recent years due to climate change.
