LAHORE: Claiming that the government has ensured security measures against terrorist attacks barring some exceptions, Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan announced opening of all public andprivate sector educational institutions including academies from Monday (tomorrow).

The education minister was spealcing at a news briefing after holding a meeting with all public sector universities` vice chancellors at Government College University on Saturday. He said the extended winter vacation had not wasted much time of students and the schools would take measures to complete the courses.

It is learnt that the vice chancellors expressed their grave concern over the sanctity of weapons being purchased for the security personnel in universities and other educational institutions and demanded that the government should also issue StandardOperating Procedures (SOPs) that when and how those weapons could be used.

Answering a question about government`s intelligence failure in keeping terrorists at bay and focussing more on taking security measures by institutions, the minister said the nation was in a state of war and all stakeholders had to fight terrorism together. He said army, political parties and all other stakeholders were on same page with a resolve that there were neither `good` Taliban nor `bad` Taliban.

Stating that the monster of terrorism had been growing up in the country for the past 40 years, he added that was not a time for `blame game`.

Referring to the newly promulgated PunjabSecurity of Vulnerable Establishments Ordinance 2015, Mr Mashhood said action would be taken against private educational institutions` owners, if they would not willingly ensure security measures as per SOPs given to them.

He said the government had so far not given security clearance to some 46 A+ and 650 A category schools in the province.

He said the government had given them some time to complete security measures as per SOPs and in the meanwhile would provide additional security to those schools. He said the government`s different agencies were also independently verifying security measures at educational institutions.

Mr Khan said the district security committees had been formed to monitor steps as well as act as neighbourhood watch and report to the government on a daily basis.

The education minister said the government had also decided to re-start National Cadet Corps (NCC) in colleges across the province and added that a formal structure would be developed to impart quality training and awareness to properly react duringeventualities. In schools, he said, the civil defence, Rescue 1122 and Red Crescent would impart training to students.

He said awareness among the teachers` community would also be made with regard to taking security measures.

Mr Khan said the internal meetings with the school and higher education departments had also discussed different shortcomings and the way forward.

He said short, mid and longterm measures were being taken. He said orders had been placed to make razor wire and CCTV cameras available in the market.