With the temperatures soaring in Telangana, the state government on Wednesday declared an early start to the summer holidays for all government and private schools, starting Thursday.
This has come as a big sigh of relief for students, who were in school despite the heat - Hyderabad in fact recorded its hottest day on April 17 with the maximum temperature touching 43 degree Celsius.
The government has taken the decision after advisories issued by Disaster management department on the prevailing heat wave.
“We received a circular in the afternoon about the holidays,” said Jagannath, Assistant Director of Education Department.
“However, before this we could not take any decision as no direction was given from the government. The vacation will last till the month of June,” he added.
Parents across Hyderabad city have been complaining about the increasing temperature during the daytime, despite which students were forced to attend school between 8am and 1pm.
“This decision is definitely late. We have been requesting for an early summer vacation because of the weather. Many parents were not sending their children to school. People are suffering from heat strokes, these are kids. They are more prone to this,” said Ashish Naredi, a member of the Hyderabad School Parents Association (HSPA).
The India Meteorological Department reportedly issued a heat wave warning for three days for Khammam, Mahabubnagar, and Hyderabad on Monday.
It was also reported that the maximum temperature might go above normal temperature by 2 to 4 degree Celsius.
“It is a good decision, but this decision should have been made on April 15 when the heat wave like situation started. The kids are exposed to this weather when we go to pick them up. They’ve finally declared holidays now, just two to three days before the vacation was supposed to begim,” said Sony Bhatt, a resident of Bowenpally in Secunderabad.
“However, the school where my two sons are studying is conducting unit tests. I am not sure whether they will close the school tomorrow,” she said.
According to Deccan Chronicle, several schools in Telangana witnessed very low attendance in pre-primary and primary sections and irregular attendance in upper primary sections.
The report said that the attendance in some schools was even less than 50% due to the heat.
“This is because the classes for academic year 2017-18 started just one week after the results, instead of June. Students started going to school in the first week of March,” said Ashish from HSPA.