ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood on Wednesday said that universities were allowed to resume in-person classes from Monday.
The minister said this in a tweet in response to a student’s question.
Earlier, the minister announced board exams for students in the 9th and 10th standard would be held only for elective subjects and mathematics while tests for students in intermediate and A-Levels would be held for elective subjects only.
“This decision is taken as students have different streams and directions so they will sit in exams related to their particular subject of interest,” Shafqat said.
The minister announced the decision at a press conference in Islamabad following a meeting of the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference.
FOURTH BATCH OF VACCINE ARRIVES FROM CHINA:
The fourth batch of Covid-19 vaccines donated by Beijing arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday, the Chinese mission said.
The batch of Sinopharm vaccines will facilitate Pakistan’s fight against the pandemic, the embassy told Xinhua.
On Tuesday, while attending the launching ceremony of the locally-produced CanSino vaccine, Chinese Ambassador Nong Rong said since the outbreak in February last year, the two governments, armies and peoples helped each other by all means, further strengthening the ironclad friendship between the two countries.
“We are proud that Pakistan is the first country to receive the vaccine gifted by the Chinese government and military,” he said.
China, he said, will deepen its cooperation with Pakistan in fighting against Covid-19 and provide all possible support and assistance to Pakistan until the latter fully overcomes the pandemic.
Earlier in the year, Beijing has aided three batches of vaccines to Pakistan, and its military also donated two batches of vaccines to its Pakistan counterpart.
In March, the government kicked off a nationwide vaccination campaign after receiving a first batch of China-donated vaccines. It has since been pushing forward the vaccination drive to consolidate the momentum in controlling the third peak in the country.
The National Command and Operation Center said on Wednesday that the country has administered a total of 7,648,481 Covid-19 vaccine doses, and the vaccination for people aged 18-29 is expected to start from Thursday.
NEW CASES:
Meanwhile, the nation has been witnessing a declining trend of infections of Covid-19 as it reported 1,843 new confirmed cases on Tuesday with a positivity rate of 3.91 percent, the NCOC said.
The data showed that Tuesday is the ninth consecutive day when the country witnessed less than 5 percent of the test positivity rate.
According to the NCOC, the number of total cases reached 924,667, including 848,685 recoveries and 55,052 active cases who are under treatment across the country.
There are 3,767 patients who are in critical condition while 80 people died from the pandemic during the last 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 20,930, the NCOC said.
Punjab is the worst-hit region with 340,557 infections and 10,084 deaths followed by Sindh with 319,447 infected people and 5,051 deaths.
The NCOC said that the country has administered a total of 7,648,481 Covid-19 vaccine doses with 2,076,600 people fully vaccinated.
