Hyderabad: In what may be welcomed as good news by lakhs of school students of Telangana state, they will be attending just half day of school till April 23. Also, the academic year will start only in mid-June.
The department of School Education of Telangana State had announced recently that the academic year would start soon after the annual exams, from March end, on the lines of CBSE schools.
However, the department announced late on Wednesday night that since supply of textbooks for sale to private school managements had been delayed due to litigation among textbook printers, it would revert to its earlier academic calendar of having half day school in April and starting the academic year in mid-June.
The government had received 15 applications for printing textbooks for private schools. Of these, 10 met the norms and officials gave tenders to five companies.
The other five moved court and obtained a stay order, delaying distribution of textbooks.
New academic year to start from mid-June
However, the move has angered private school managements. President of the Telangana State Recognised Schools Management Association S. Sreenivas Reddy said, “The postponement of starting the academic year results in stop-gap unproductive activities in schools such as revision of previous year’s lessons and remedial classes, as the 2015-16 academic year has ended and new textbooks are not available.
“Students as well as parents do not take school seriously for a month for the same reason. Precious time is lost. The government had also released the 2015-16 calendar well in advance, in July 2015, so it should have stocked textbooks in advance so that they were available as soon as the exams ended, but it failed to do so. If allowed, private school managements will print textbooks and start the academic year soon.”
