Hyderabad: It will be a tough three weeks for children and their parents in the 10 districts of Telangana as schools shortlisted as centres for the SSC examination have decided to hold classes in the afternoon from Monday. With temperatures hovering around the 40ºC mark, their health will be at risk.
After a gap of many years, classes will be held from 1 pm to 5 pm. With SSC exams set to be held from 9.30 am to 12.15 pm from Monday, nearly 436 schools in Ranga Reddy and 355 in Hyderabad district are left with no option. Of these, 60 per cent are private schools following the state syllabus.
The blame is being put on the Education department for its lack of planning the academic calendar. “Until a few days ago, officials were saying that the new academic year would begin from March 21.
But in the middle of this week an announcement came that the calendar year would begin from June due to non-availability of textbooks for private schools,” said Mr N. Ashish, a parent. Private school managements are finding it difficult to handle questions from parents on how classes will be run for a month without textbooks.
“Schools completed exams for Classes 1 to 9 by the second week of March. Now instructions are being given to parents that their children will be promoted to the next standard and classes will be held from Monday. We are not sure how to do that without textbooks,” said Bro. Show Reddy, Missionary Schools’ Association president.
