LAHORE: The closure of schools in the cantonment areas across Pakistan will result in an upsurge of out-of-school children besides wastage of another academic year following the pandemic situation, President All Pakistan Private Schools Federation (APPSF) Kashif Mirza warned on Monday.

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In 2018, the Supreme Court (SC) had given its verdict in a case pertaining to commercial activities in the residential areas of cantonment boards across the country.

The apex court had ordered to put an end to commercial activities in cantonment areas following which the owners of around 30,000 private schools were given a final warning to shut down the educational institutions by the end of this year.

In its statement, the APPSF official noted that around 4 million students were enrolled in more than 30,000 private schools in 42 cantonment boards across the country.

Apart from this, Mirza added that the private schools were a source of employment for around 0.4 million people as teaching and non-teaching staff.

The APPSF official highlighted that nearly 2,600 private schools would be affected only in the cantonment area of Lahore let alone other cities.

Highlighting the plight of the private educational sector, Mirza said that more than 10,000 private schools had already been shut down and 0.7 million educators had lost their jobs amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

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There was not enough space to relocate the plethora of schools from cantonment areas, he added.

APPSF also urged the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed, Prime Minister Imran Khan, and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa to review the decision.