The annual school calender has been rescheduled in Sikkim for the academic session 2018-19, according to state Human Resources Development Department (HRDD) Minister, R B Subba. "It has been decided to modify the annual school calendar and reschedule the summer and winter vacations from the academic session 2018-19 in the best interest of the students and taking into account vagaries of weather," Subba told reporters. Under the new annual school calender, the duration of winter vacation has been reduced from two months to one month and the summer vacation duration has been increased to one month, he said. "This decision will help improve academic qualities of the students and make them more competitive," Subba said. Under the new academic session 2018, the schools will re-open on February 12, 2018, but for the Academic Session 2019, the schools will re-open on February 1, 2019. Throwing more light on benefits of new academic calender for local students, additional chief secretary GP Upadhyaya, said "The number of holidays, winter and summer put together, remains the same...
We have decided to increase summer vacation duration in view of a lot of rainfall in monsoon season ...." "The winter nowadays is not as harsh as it used to be and so the schools can utilise more days of the winter vacation as working days to minimise the learning gap," he said. Under the new calendar, the Class 11 classes will start in June-July to give the students sufficient time to not only complete their syllabus, but also leave ample time to them to prepare for competitive examinations during extended winter vacation, he said. From next academic session the annual examination for Class 11 will be held in February, he informed. The decision will also align Sikkim's academic calendar with that of CBSE and NCERT to a great extent which will help local students in taking part in various All-India activities as well as in getting the revised NCERT and CBSE text books in time for them, the HRDD official said.
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