KARACHI: School summer holidays will be extended by two weeks in southern Pakistan because of high temperatures, affecting more than 100,000 schools, an education official said Tuesday.
Pakistan is increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather conditions resulting from climate change, including heatwaves that are hotter and more frequent and monsoons that are heavier and longer.
“We decided to close schools for an additional 14 days for the children’s well-being,” Atif Vighio, a spokesperson at the education department in Sindh province, told AFP.
Planned power cuts, also known as load-shedding, happen frequently in Pakistan due to an ongoing power supply crisis.
The load-shedding varies from city to city, but in rural areas of Sindh they can last for more than 12 hours a day, leaving schools without fans.
“As a teacher, I am worried about how I will complete the curriculum, but as a mother, I am concerned about kids going to school in this heat,” a public school teacher told AFP, asking for her name not to be used.
“It is the load-shedding we are worried about, not just the heat.”
The government has said more than 26 million children are out of school due to poverty.
Pakistan struggled through a series of heatwaves in May and June, with temperatures peaking at more than 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of rural Sindh.
Authorities in Punjab province, the country’s most populous, started summer vacations in May one week early to protect children from the searing heat.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF said more than three-quarters of children in South Asia — or 460 million — are exposed to temperatures above 35C (95F) for at least 83 days per year.
Despite contributing less than one percent to global greenhouse gas emissions, Pakistan has experienced severe weather-related disasters in recent years due to changing weather patterns.
Over 100,000 schools in Pakistan remain closed due to the heat
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Over 100,000 schools in Pakistan remain closed due to the heat
Brave new world: How countries are regulating AI
- These landmark rules have faced pushback from Washington under President Donald Trump, but also from businesses and governments at home that complain they could hamper growth
TOKYO: Since ChatGPT stunned the world three years ago with the powers of generative AI, countries have grappled with how to govern the rapidly developing technology.
As Vietnam’s artificial intelligence law goes into effect on Sunday, let’s take a look at regulation efforts around the globe:
The EU is considered a trailblazer, having adopted in 2024 what it calls “the world’s first comprehensive AI law” penalized with heavy fines.
The law takes a risk-based approach; if a system is high-risk, a company will have a stricter set of obligations to fulfill before being authorized in the EU.
These landmark rules have faced pushback from Washington under President Donald Trump, but also from businesses and governments at home that complain they could hamper growth.
The EU bowed to pressure last year and proposed changes including partially delaying the law’s application in a move it says will help European companies compete globally.
The law will now be fully applicable in 2027, but the EU already allows regulators to ban systems deemed to pose unacceptable risks.
That could include “social scoring” systems that lead to discrimination by classifying individuals or groups based on social behavior or personal traits.
The US, home to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, chip titan Nvidia and tech giants like Google, is not keen on enacting new rules.
Vice President JD Vance has warned against “excessive regulation” that “could kill a transformative sector.”
