Bowing to pressure from teachers’ organisations, the General Education department has gone back on the decision to begin the summer vacations on April 6.
At a meeting of the Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) monitoring committee convened by Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty here on Wednesday, it was decided that the number of working days in the academic year would be capped at 205, instead of 210 as announced. Schools would close on the last working day in March as before and the days from April 1 to 5 would remain part of the summer vacation.
The department had on June 1 brought out an academic calendar in which there were 210 working days and the close of the academic year had been extended to April 5.
The decision, however, drew a lot of flak from teachers’ organisations, including from the pro-CPI(M) Kerala School Teachers’ Association and the pro-CPI All Kerala School Teachers’ Union. They were especially irked that the academic calendar had been announced by the Minister with changes that had not been discussed with them, even though a QIP meeting had been held two days before. Such unilateral decisions could not be accepted, the organisations had said.
At that meeting, teachers’ had voiced their opposition to the initial proposal to have 28 Saturdays as working and increase the number of working days in the year to 220. There was a consensus that there would not be more than five consecutive working days in a week, and that having 12 Saturdays as working would take the number of working days to more than that last year.
In the 2022-23 academic year, there were 198 working days in the academic calendar. By adding four working Saturdays, 202 working days could be achieved in the year. However, in the current academic year, there were only 192 working days. By including 13 Saturdays, the number of working days could reach 205.
The Kerala Pradesh School Teachers Association, Kerala School Teachers’ Union, and the National Teachers’ Union demanded that the decision to have two Saturdays in March as working be withdrawn since those would be sixth consecutive working days in the week. The KPSTA, in a statement, said it would continue its protest until the decision was rolled back.
