A meeting of the inter-provincial education ministers will be held on video link on Monday (today) with Minister for Federal Education Shafqat Mahmood in the chair. The forum will discuss the prevailing situation of the second wave of Covid-19 and reopening of educational institutions across the country. The meeting will also deliberate upon the beginning of the new academic session from August and reduction of spring and summer vacations. The agenda of the meeting has a proposal to conduct board examinations from the last week of May. The meeting is expected to discuss the national education policy. The federal government is mulling over to reopen educational institutions across the country in three phases starting from January 25. A final decision will be taken in a meeting of an inter-provincial conference scheduled for January 4. In this connection, it has been suggested that in the first phase, primary schools in both the public and private sectors should be reopened from January 25, 2021, while in the second phase, middle and secondary schools should be reopened from February 4. Moreover, secondary educational institutions were proposed to be reopened in the third phase. It has been learnt that decision on reopening of educational institutions will be taken on the basis of health advisory keeping in view the prevailing coronavirus situation across the country. On November 23, the federal government had announced to shut all educational institutions from November 26 to December 24 due to a spike in Covid-19 cases. The government had also announced winter vacations in educational institutions from December 25 to January 10.