Peshawar schools closed on Monday, 12 October, under a notification from the Deputy Commissioner's office, and three other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ordered the same one-day shutdown. The Associated Press of Pakistan said the order covers every public and private school, college and university inside District Peshawar. Dawn also reported that educational institutions in the city would stay closed that day.
The holiday reaches beyond the provincial capital. ProPakistani reported that the district administrations of Swabi, Mardan and Nowshera each issued a notification keeping all public and private schools, colleges and universities shut on Monday, 12 October.
Closure orders in four districts
APP said the Peshawar notification applies throughout the territorial limits of the district and takes in both public and private institutions, from schools through universities.
In Swabi, ProPakistani reported, the deputy commissioner and the District Education Officer told public and private institutions to suspend the day's activities because of the current situation. Mardan's deputy commissioner declared a holiday for every educational institution on 12 October. In Nowshera, Deputy Commissioner Gohar Zaman gave the same direction: public and private institutions closed, and teaching suspended.
Exams cancelled in Mardan and Nowshera
Students who were due to sit papers on Monday in Mardan or Nowshera will not do so. ProPakistani reported that Mardan has called off every exam and paper that had been set for Monday, and that Nowshera has likewise scrapped the examinations due that day. The notifications, the report said, name 12 October only and give no fresh date for those papers.
Peshawar schools closed for Monday are due back the next day, on Dawn's account. A Dawn headline stated that educational institutions in Peshawar would remain open on Tuesday. Neither APP nor the district notices described by ProPakistani say whether Swabi, Mardan and Nowshera will also reopen then.
What reports say about the emergency
ProPakistani said the shutdowns in Swabi, Mardan and Nowshera followed an emergency imposed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the situation then prevailing in the province. APP's account of the Peshawar order did not give a reason. The ProPakistani report did not quote an emergency proclamation or describe any step beyond the closures.
An NDTV headline said Pakistan had imposed an emergency while supporters of Imran Khan marched in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Only that headline was available, so the march is not described in the school notices reported by APP and ProPakistani. Swabi's instructions, as relayed by ProPakistani, cited the current situation. None of the notices, as reported, set a timetable past Monday.
With Peshawar schools closed for a single notified day, families in the district have classes off on 12 October and, according to Dawn, a return to campus on Tuesday. In Mardan and Nowshera the immediate change is greater for anyone who had a paper on Monday: the paper will not be held, and no replacement date has been announced.
