BHUBANESWAR: After deciding to restore the syllabus to 100% from the 2022-23 academic session, the State government on Saturday curtailed the summer vacation by a month to bridge the learning loss suffered by the students in the last two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The School and Mass Education (SME) department in its notification stated that the new academic session will begin on May 1 and the summer vacation for the students, which usually continues from the first week of May to the third week of June, will only be for 10 days this year -- from June 6 to 16.
An official from the department said the poor marks obtained by the students in the baseline survey carried out for Class I to VIII students in three phases between October 25, 2021 to March 11 was one of the key reasons school days have been extended to make up for the learning losses.
The additional one month's time will be used to cover important chapters from the previous years as per the learning recovery plan formulated by the Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA).
With daytime temperatures soaring above 40 degree Celsius in most of the places across the state, the department has announced that they will keep the teaching hours limited to three hours from 6 am to 9 am in the additional teaching month from May 1 to June 5.
Besides, as per the department notification, all students in Classes I to VIII will be promoted to the next class without an exam and the process will be completed by April 20.
Similarly, the school authorities will complete new admissions and re-admissions by April 30.
The department stated that as per the new assessment policy introduced by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) Odisha, Class IX students will require to appear for the Summative Assessment-II Examination.
However, the assessment, declaration of results and promotion of the students to Class X will be completed by May 10.
Cooked food under Mid Day Meal scheme will be served to the eligible students during the morning classes.