School timings and closures in Pakistan: what each province has notified

This page tracks what has actually been notified about school timings, holidays and closures in Pakistan. It is updated when a provincial education department issues a notification or a minister confirms a change on the record. Nothing on this page comes from a forwarded image.

Last reviewed: 19 September 2026.

Start here: the fake notification problem

On 9 September 2026 Sindh Education Minister Sardar Shah publicly rejected a document circulating on social media about school timings, calling it fake and misleading, and told people to rely only on official announcements. That is the single most useful thing on this page.

Every term, screenshots of a plausible-looking notification circulate on WhatsApp announcing a closure or a timing change. They are frequently invented. Three checks before you act on one:

1. Does it carry a notification number, a date and a signing officer? Real notifications do.
2. Is it on the education department's own site or the minister's verified account?
3. Is any mainstream outlet reporting it? A real province-wide closure is never a WhatsApp exclusive.

Sindh: timings notified to 31 March 2027

The School Education and Literacy Department notified a full timing schedule effective 6 August 2026, stated to run until further orders. It has two seasonal blocks.

Single-shift schools (primary, elementary, secondary, higher secondary)

Double-shift schools, first shift

Double-shift schools, second shift

The change that matters for most families is the 1 November switch. Single-shift schools start half an hour later and finish half an hour later from that date.

Separately, the Sindh government abolished the weekly Saturday holiday across public and private institutions in a decision reported on 30 July 2026, and the education minister has said timings were cut by an hour following complaints from female students about the length of the school day.

Punjab: summer vacations ended 24 August 2026

Punjab's education minister warned schools against reopening before 24 August 2026, enforcing the summer vacation schedule. Schools have been open since.

Winter vacations in Punjab have been moved to January in recent years rather than falling in late December, and the dates are notified close to the time. There is no notified Punjab winter date for 2026-27 yet. When one is issued it will appear here.

Islamabad and Rawalpindi: weather closures

Schools in Rawalpindi and Islamabad were closed on 1 September 2026 because of heavy rain and urban flooding risk. Weather closures are decided day by day by the district administration, not months ahead, and are announced the evening before or the morning of. They are the one category where a same-day announcement is normal, which is also why fake ones spread fastest.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan

No current notification on timings, closures or winter vacation dates for the 2026-27 term has been issued that we can verify from an official source. We are not going to fill these sections with second-hand dates. When the departments notify, this page is updated the same day.

What to do when a closure is announced

If your child's school closes at short notice, fee liability does not change: closure days are not refundable in most private school contracts in Pakistan, and announced makeup classes are the school's obligation to schedule, not yours to pay extra for.

For the academic side, our CGPA and marks calculator handles the conversions between percentage, grade and GPA when results come out.

How this page is maintained

Every item above carries a source. If you see a notification we have missed, the date and the issuing department are all we need to check it.