Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood has summoned a meeting of provincial education ministers on Monday to mull over the winter holidays schedule for educational institutes amid rising COVID-19 cases in the country, a private TV channel reported on Friday. According to details, the meeting scheduled for Monday would decide over announcing winter holidays in the educational institutes ahead of the schedule besides also extending its duration amid rising COVID-19 cases. The federal minister said that any educational institute reporting more than two virus cases will face closure. It is pertinent to mention here that the NCOC on Wednesday decided that the education minister will chair a high-level meeting on November 16, which will review and take decisions over the situation of the disease in academic institutions. The NCOC session also recommended early winter vacations in schools to halt the spread of the pandemic. Besides the NCOC meeting, the Punjab government on November 03 decided to give winters vacations in all schools of the province from the second week of the ongoing month due to smog and rising Covid-19 cases. As per details, a meeting had been held in Lahore to review the situation after the spike in coronavirus cases and decide about the closure of schools and winter vacations. The decision to close down schools came under discussion owing to rising COVID-19 cases, which is against the prior decision of the federal authorities on November 05, where it was decided that in an effort to overcome the educational loss of students due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all the provinces decided to slash or not to observe winter vacations in the educational institutions this year.