-Reshma Ravishanker

Cutting short from a conventional 50-day summer vacation break to less than a month, schools in Karnataka will commence the next academic year on May 16.

The department of public instruction announced on February 23 that summer holidays will be on from April 10 to May 15 for the next academic year. The current academic year will come to an end on April 9.

Final exams for classes 1-5 or classes 1-7 and 1-8, depending on the school, will be held between March 24 to April 4 and results will be announced on April 9. For classes 8-9, in high schools, exams are scheduled between March 21 to 26 and results will be announced on April 7.  

With the commencement of the new academic year, teachers have been asked to offer bridge courses. Acknowledging that for most of the last academic year, conventional offline learning did not take place due to the pandemic, resulting in learning loss, guidelines are being framed to address the same.

Meanwhile, government teachers across the state have expressed dissatisfaction over the number of holidays being cut short. “We work round the year with minimal leaves. Including the evaluation of the current year and results announcement, we will hardly have a two week break,” said a teacher from Shivamogga.

HK Manjunatha, president, Karnataka State High School Assistant Headmasters Association said that during the pandemic period, teachers must be considered ‘non-vacational’ staff. “We are entitled to 50 days of summer holidays. Under this condition, compared to the other department staff, we get a lesser number of casual leaves. It is unfair for the teachers if they do not get stipulated leaves even during summer vacation and also forgo casual leave. We work throughout the year not only on the academic side but also help during elections, health checks, vaccination drives etc. The department must be considerate and rework on a leave schedule for us,” he sought.  

Also read: Karnataka High Court: Interim order on uniform applies to students only