Delhi schools will have summer vacations from May 11. Representational image/ file
The Delhi government’s education department Wednesday declared summer vacation for schools run by it until the end of June. All schools in Delhi have been closed since mid-March as a precautionary measure against the spread of the coronavirus. This means that children have been away from school for almost two months, and there had been speculation about the possibility of doing away with summer vacation this year to make up for lost academic time.
However, on Wednesday, the education department issued an order declaring summer vacations for all government schools starting from May 11 and ending on June 30. The order reads, “…students shall not be called to schools for any teaching learning activity during the summer vacation.”
Starting from April 7, the Delhi government has introduced a range of distance learning initiatives for its students – live online classes for class 12 students, learning and mindfulness through SMS and IVR calls for students up to class 8, online mathematics classes for students who have completed class IX, and spoken English classes for those who are awaiting the completion of their board examinations. All these activities will continue to take place through the duration of the summer vacation.
“In other years, during the summer vacation students who struggle with their learning basics come to school to attend classes under Mission Buniyaad – our foundational learning programme. This year we cannot conduct that but all the different activities we have introduced during the lockdown will continue to keep learning going,” said education director Binay Bhushan.
This order effectively means that government school students will not be returning to their classrooms till June 30. However, Bhushan said that the decision on whether they will return to school on July 1 has not been taken yet and will be taken on the basis of how the situation will unfold.