Kochi: He was fondly called ‘Milk Sheik’ by children, last monsoon season, because the moment he spotted a dark cloud on the horizon, he declared a holiday for schools. Former Ernakulum District Collector, Sheik Pareeth, had become a darling of the students, by bringing a windfall of holidays for them. By declaring a holiday last Monday, M G Rajamanickam, was set to follow his predecessor and the students were set to call him ‘Our Manickam’. But he withdrew the holiday as the skies cleared with only sporadic rains.
Monday’s holiday brought about the debate whether the District Collectors should be allowed to declare holidays, in the manner they do now, or should principals declare holidays. Sometimes after the holiday is declared by the Collector, the previous evening, the skies would have cleared up the next morning making the declared holiday unwarranted.
The Kerala CBSE School Management Association’s general secretary, Indira Rajan, said that the powers to declare a holiday, owing to heavy rains, should be vested with the District Collector. “The principals won’t be aware of the ground reality, while the District Collectors will get input from the Government agencies. The students would be coming from different parts. However, what the
District Collector can do is to declare holidays taluka-wise. Last Monday when the holiday was declared in Ernakulum, some parts of the district were having a bright weather,” Indira Rajan said.
She also said that the practice of declaring holidays late in the night should be avoided. “When holidays are declared late many schools won’t know about it the next day and the students come to school early morning. Then they would not be in a position to send the students back home as by then their parents would have gone to work. So holidays should be declared at least by 7.30 pm,” she said.
However, the Education Minister, P K Abdu Rabb, is strong in his views that the District Collector or State Government should be the authority to declare the holiday. “Students from different parts of a district would be coming to a particular school and the District Collector alone would be in a position to assess the situation and not principals of different schools,” said Abdu Rabb.
The principal of Saraswathy Vidyanikethan, Elamakkara, Kochi, G Devan, opined that the District Collector should use discretion while declaring holidays. “Rather than declaring holiday for the whole district, he should declare it for the flood-affected areas or talukas. Otherwise working days will be lost unnecessarily and the teachers will find it difficult to complete the portions. Declaring holidays at the drop of a hat would make children lazy as well,” he said.
The principal of Rajagiri Christu Jayanthi Public School, Kakkanad, Saji Varghese and principal of Chinmaya School Vaduthala, Maya Mohan, said that it is best to leave the decision to District Collectors. “The Collectors would be in a better position to judge the situation. The students are safe at the school, rain or no rain, but we don’t know how the roads and other situation are. So principals can’t declare holidays,” said Maya Mohan.
