WHEN fuel prices rose sharply in March, the government closed schools for two weeks, moved universities online and placed public offices on a four-day week. The measures followed an external shock: Pakistan imports most of the petroleum it consumes and Gulf disruption pushed crude past $119 a barrel. Conservation was an economic necessity, not a preference.

The question is urgent again. As petrol prices touch fresh highs this month, reports suggest the federal government is weighing a four-day week covering schools, colleges and universities alongside offices. In Punjab, the education minister has had to respond publicly to reports of a three-day school week. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the department rejected a widely shared closure notification as fake. Parents and teachers are reading rumours because no published framework tells them what happens to learning when fuel runs short.

That absence is the real problem. A closed office postpones a meeting. A closed classroom interrupts a process that depends on sequence. A child who misses the lesson on fractions will struggle with every exercise built upon it. A young reader beginning to recognise sentences loses fluency quickly. Instructional time is not recovered by adding dates to a calendar. Consider what the March closure protected. Schools shut from 16 to 31 March, roughly ten instructional days. Examinations, however, went ahead as scheduled. The state preserved assessment and suspended teaching. The measurable event was defended; the cumulative process was........

© Pakistan Observer