The Pakistan Education Regulatory Authority has approved a comprehensive regulatory framework for virtual schools in Islamabad, marking a major step toward formalising online education in the capital. For the first time, a structured system has been introduced for the registration and monitoring of online schools up to the higher secondary level, giving virtual education a formal regulatory footing that previously did not exist in the territory.
The policy is designed to expand access to education for out of school children, students in remote areas, and individuals with special needs, addressing gaps in the traditional schooling system that virtual learning models are often better positioned to fill. Under the new framework, virtual schools are required to provide digital teaching training for instructors, ensure adequate cybersecurity measures, and align their curriculum with national education standards, placing online schools under similar quality expectations as their physical counterparts.
Separate criteria have also been set for screen time limits and examination procedures spanning the primary level through to higher secondary, addressing concerns that have often accompanied the growth of online schooling in Pakistan, where formal oversight of screen exposure and assessment integrity has previously been limited or inconsistent across different platforms and providers.
Acting Chairman of ICT-PEIRA Doctor Ghulam Ali Mallah said the framework would serve as a model for other provinces to follow, positioning Islamabad as a reference point for how virtual education can be regulated elsewhere in the country. He added that the framework, developed with support from the Federal Ministry of Education, would play an important role in raising the country’s literacy rate by extending structured educational access to populations that have traditionally been underserved by conventional school infrastructure.
The virtual schools framework builds on a broader digital transformation push already underway at ICT-PEIRA, which made online registration compulsory for all private educational institutions in the Islamabad Capital Territory earlier this year, requiring registration and renewal applications to be submitted exclusively through a digital portal rather than in hard copy. Mallah has previously described his vision for the authority as one of becoming a fully paperless, digitally driven organisation, with plans to extend digital processes beyond registration into compliance monitoring and regulatory inspections in future phases. The introduction of a dedicated virtual schools framework adds a further layer to this broader digitisation effort, formally bringing online education under the same regulatory umbrella that governs Islamabad’s traditional private school sector.
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