Dasara holidays cut for govt schools, PU colleges; pvt schools unaffected

BENGALURU: It's official. As was widely feared, government schools and PU colleges in the city will have a shorter Dasara vacation this year, according to the education department. Earlier, the holidays were from Oct. 8 to Oct. 28 but now they’ll end on October 23. “Schools and PU colleges will now open on Monday, Oct. 24 instead of the earlier Friday, Oct.28,” said Ajay Seth, principal secretary, primary and secondary education department.
Some private schools in the city had already announced that there would be no change in the holiday schedule. Until a week ago, most schools were thinking of cutting short or even cancelling the holidays. Owing to a series of bandhs and strikes, most schools were concerned on how they would make up for the prescribed total number of working days.
Mansoor Ali Khan, board member, Delhi Public School, told TOI: “We have managed to cover up the days we lost to bandhs and strikes by conducting extra classes on Saturdays. For the past 6 weeks, we’ve been working on Saturdays. Reducing or cancelling holidays would be very demotivating for students and thats’ we have decided not to do it.” Across the city, DPS will be closed from Oct. 6-18.
D Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Karnataka Associated Management of Private Unaided Schools, said, “We have issued guidelines to our schools to remain shut from Oct. 7-27. By working an extra hour every day and working full days on Saturdays, we were able to cover up the number of missed hours.”
He added: “We have left it to the managements of our associated schools to take a call on shortening the holidays. But as far as working days are concerned, we’re now in a comfortable position and hope the city doesn’t have to shut down anymore as then it would become very difficult to manage.”
There may, however, be a possibility that the two-week Christmas vacation could be cut short as well, although schools have not confirmed this. The buzz among parents is that the Christmas break may be shortened by two or three days. Shashi Kumar said, “We may balance the holidays with Diwali or Christmas, depending on the situation. We can confirm this once we see the academic progress.”