Karnataka: State board school teachers upset over cut in summer vacation

The teachers working with high schools affiliated to state board are upset as the government has cut their summer vacation by 15 days and asked them to take remedial classes for students who have registered for SSLC examination 2.

Following the higher number of students who failed in the SSLC examination 1 this year, the Department of School Education and Literacy has decided to conduct remedial classes for students who have failed and for those who wish to improve their marks and the same has been resumed from Wednesday.

For this, the department has cut down the summer vacation for high school teachers to 15 days. As per the schedule, the schools were suppose to re-open from May 29. Not just government schools, even aided and unaided school teachers have been asked to resume work. "Every year, because of one or the other reasons, the department cuts our holiday," said a teacher.

Another teacher said that she had planned for a trip with her family from May 20. Now, she was forced to cancel the trip. "Since my daughter was preparing for NEET, we had planned a trip from May 20. Now as the government asked us to come back to work, we had to cancel the plan," she said.

H K Manjunath, honorary president of Karnataka High School Assistant Masters' Association, requested the department to issue a revised order.

"It is not that we are not willing to work, but our request is to conduct classes cluster wise," he said. Under the cluster system, one school will be identified and students of 5-6 schools of that cluster will be asked to attend classes in that particular school. This will be beneficial for teachers too where they can take classes on rotation basis, he added.

Meanwhile, some of the MLCs have also urged the government to withdraw the circular asking teachers to come to schools.

However, the private schools are of the opinion that they do re-open schools from May 15 for grade 10 and their teachers have no issues to take remedial classes.

"Teachers get salaries even for the vacation duration and compromising 15 days for the benefit of students has nothing to lose for them. We all commence schools for SSLC from May 15 every year," said a representative of a private school management.