Punjab schools closed, night curfew in 8 districts

Amritsar, Mar 13: The Punjab government imposed a night curfew in four more districts on Friday and closed all schools amid a rise in coronavirus cases in the state, officials said. In total, the night curfew is imposed from 11 pm to 5 am in eight districts -- Ludhiana, Patiala, Mohali, Fatehgarh Sahib, Jalandhar, Nawanshahr, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur.

The Department of School Education has declared "preparatory leaves" for all classes in government and private schools, state Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla said. However, the teachers will continue to remain present in the schools.

The students who want to take any guidance from their teachers regarding exam preparation can come to school, the minister said.

He said the final examination in schools would be conducted offline while adhering to the COVID-19 guidelines strictly.

The detailed directions for conducting examinations while ensuring compliance of COVID-19 guidelines would be issued soon, Singla said.

The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) has already released the schedule of examinations. As per the dates announced by the PSEB, the examinations for Class 5 would start from March 16, for Class 8 and 12 from March 22 and Class 10 exams will start from April 9. The examinations of Classes 6, 7, 9 and 11 will start from March 15 and for Classes 1 to 4, the examinations will start from March 17.

Punjab reported 1,318 new cases on Friday, pushing the infection tally to 1,94,753, while the death toll rose to 6,030 with four more fatalities.