Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has directed district collectors to declare rain holidays only in case of ‘severe inundation or flooding in any area leading to paralysis of transport facilities.’
While issuing the guidelines for declaring rain holidays, school education secretary Pradeep Yadav urged the collectors to exercise caution before declaring a holiday to schools.
“Mere rain or drizzle should not be taken as a cause for declaring holidays,” he said.
Criticising district collectors for declaring holidays even on a normal rainy day, Pradeep Yadav said, “It has been noticed that on the days of holidays on the account of rains, there is bright sunshine.”
He also said it affects the lesson plan for teaching and learning.
“On the mere warnings of the cyclone, irrespective of intensity, school holidays are declared in a routine manner on the previous day itself,” he added.
As per the new guidelines, the collectors have to take the decision to close schools three hours before the opening of schools considering the prevailing situation at that time.
It also suggested restricting the holiday only to the affected areas. “The chief educational officers shall assess the gravity of the situation and suggest the area and day for declaring a holiday to the district collector,” Pradeep Yadav said in the letter.
“The revenue district need not be the unit of the declaration of the holiday, while educational district, block or any other local body could be unit for declaring the holiday,” the official suggested.
He further said holidays on other accounts such as local temple festivals should also contain the day on which compensatory classes would be held so that schools do not miss any lessons planned.
The camps in schools also advised shifting to other places such as community halls, service centres and cyclone shelters in the vicinity. “Government schools are normally the first target for selecting centres without exploring other options. As a result, the studies of students particularly in government schools are adversely affected,” he said adding that the schedule of tests and exams get derailed due to too many holidays in some pretext or others.He urged that clearing of water and cleaning the school premises should be given utmost priority during the relief work.
