THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Bowing to pressure from teachers’ unions, including those affiliated with the ruling Left front, the government has slashed the number of working days in the current academic year for Classes 1 to 10 in state syllabus schools from 210 to 205.
The climbdown has come as a major embarrassment for General Education Minister V Sivankutty who had ruled out a rethink on the number of working days in schools.
The decision to limit the working days to 205 was taken at a meeting convened by Sivankutty with the teachers’ union representatives in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday. The government had earlier earmarked 13 Saturdays and also the first five days of the summer vacation in April 2024 as additional working days. The reason cited was to ensure at least 210 instructional days in the academic year that originally had only 192 working days.
At the meeting, in which the unions voiced their opposition, it was decided to consider only 13 Saturdays as extra working days. The academic year will now end on March 31 instead of April 5. On June 1, when schools across the state reopened after summer vacation, Sivankutty had created a flutter by announcing that the vacation will begin only on April 6.
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The move, unprecedented in Kerala, would have required amendments to education rules, the teachers’ unions pointed out. “Of the 52 Saturdays in the academic year, only 13 have been earmarked as working days. These Saturdays fall in weeks having less than five working days,” said a note from the minister’s office, adding that a recent Supreme Court order as well as existing rules stipulate five-day week schedule for schools.
In the previous academic year, four Saturdays were earmarked as additional working days, taking the total to 204. In an earlier meeting with the unions, the government had conveyed that the number of extra working days will be similar to previous years, but later amended it unilaterally.
Pro-Congress union Kerala Pradesh School Teachers’ Association (KPSTA) said its firm opposition had forced Sivankutty to backtrack from his announcement extending the commencement of summer vacation to April 6. KPSTA state president K Abdul Majeed said the union will continue to agitate till the government rolls back its decision to earmark 13 Saturdays as extra working days.