On Monday, May 09, 2022, Rajasthan joined the list of states declaring early summer vacation before the commencement of the new academic year 2022-23. As per the state education department, summer vacations shall begin from tomorrow May 11, 2022,in both government and private schools. Although the move took schools by surprise, the department did not provide any reason for declaring summer vacations early. As per reports, this decision has upset the schedule of private schools.
What did the government order state?
According to the order issued by the director of secondary education Guarav Agrawal, summer vacation for schools in Rajasthan shall commence from tomorrow. However, the order neither mentioned the end date nor the reasons for early vacations. It also did not shed light on the exams scheduled in May 2022 and whether their dates remain the same.
The order also directed teachers to complete their official work and curate the results on time. No further information was mentioned in the order, as also reported by the Times of India.
Terming it as “infringement on their autonomy” private schools have expressed their views against the government order. Most of the state private schools had planned on conducting lectures this month. So that they are able to cover the learning gap created due to COVID-19 before the start of a new academic year.
Revised schools timings & early vacation
The decision of early summer vacations comes just 10 days after the government decided on revising the schools timings. Schools were directed to conduct lectures till 11:30 am. These abrupt moves are bound to impact the quality of classroom teaching, especially with respect to Mathematics, Comprehension and reading, as implied by reports.
Although the government has not directly cited reasons to support their decisions, once can clearly hold two reasons responsible –
#1 Prevailing heat wave in the state
#2 Acute power shortage in schools and power outage in rural areas during school hours
Both conditions are enough to gravely affect the health of students commuting every day to reach school on time.
Situation in other states
The decision of early summer vacations may surprise a few. However, Rajasthan is not the first state to make such a move. In fact, states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha and Haryana had taken this decision last week, owing to pathetic weather conditions. If the situation worsens, it wouldn’t come as a surprise when other states also join the club.
