Parents and Students Demand Early Summer Vacations as Heat Wave Grips Pakistan

Now, with first major heatwave of the season gripping Pakistan, parents and students are pressurising provincial governments to start summer vacations early in the name of students’ health and dangerously high temperature.

The demand is after a heatwave alert by Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), sensing an extreme rise in temperatures within southern, central and northern parts of the nation.

The PMD says that a high pressure system will result in temperatures to rise dramatically above normal, and Sindh, southern Punjab, and Balochistan will get daytime temperature 4°C to 6°C higher than normal on May 15-20.

The central and northern region, such as Islamabad, upper Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan will experience a jump of 5°C to 7°C between May 15 and 19.

Among all these warnings, a lot of parents have turned to social media and written authorities asking to follow the official schedule of vacation.

To that end, the Punjab government is likely to announce summer holidays in schools and colleges from June 1 to August 9, 2025.

This, however, can change according to Punjab Secretary of School Education Khalid Nazir Wattoo. If high temperatures are uncommon then vacation could start a week earlier he said, stressing that the safety of learners and employees is paramount.

In the meantime, the PMD has predicted some respite for the upper regions towards May 19/20 when a westerly weather system may bring rain, thunderstorms and hail, with their tornadoes, over Kashmir, Islamabad, Pothohar region, northeast Punjab, upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit