When holidays are no longer jolly days

Hyderabad: The strike by TSRTC employees has forced the Telangana government to extend the Dasara holidays for schools and colleges till 19th October as the school and college buses are being used for public transportation.

Earlier, the government had declared 16-day holiday for the festival, and, after the extension of holidays, the vacation increased to 22 days. Many of the schoolchildren, teachers and other staff who were dependent on the RTC buses to commute are not happy with decision.

Speaking to The Hans India, Mutyala Ravindar from the Telangana Progressive Teachers Federation, expressed concern that, "If the holidays are extended, the students are the ones who will be more affected. Due to such a long gap in the curriculum, the students would tend to forget everything that they have been taught before vacations. It will take them a week to get back to their normal state and it will affect their preparation for summative and final exams."

Rachna Bhattacharjee, the principal of Unicent School at Nagole, said, "This is the second time this year when the vacations have been extended. Earlier it was during the summer holidays and now this. It will obviously leave a lot of pressure on the students as well as teachers. I am getting a lot of calls from the teachers asking me how we will cope up with the curriculum in such a short time."

While private schools say they will revise their curriculum to cover syllabus in the remaining working days, teachers from government schools too face similar pressure from parents and pupils alike. Sri Hari from Zilla Parishad High School, Balaji Nagar, said, "We were supposed to have summative exams after the holidays but because of the extension we have to reschedule it.

Students from our school are tensed, especially the ones in 9th and 10th classes. They are asking me to take holiday classes to cover up the syllabus." He further added, "Because of fewer days at our disposal, the teachers will speed up the teaching. Bright students will not have any issues with it, but the ones who are average would will be stressed and in helpless state."

How they view more vacation

Pragya Nagori, a Class 12 student from Villa Marie Junior College, Somajiguda, said, "Whether someone is a bright or an average student, every day lost due to the ongoing strike affects our education.

Yet, bright students somehow manage to cope up with it, but average students like us have to suffer due to backlogs, not to forget the ratio difference between the top scorers and the regular students is huge. In our country where the future is entirely dependent on only numbers, it does matter a lot."

Nishtha Bhuraria, another Class 10 student from Oakridge International School, Gachibowli, said, "The extension of holidays will put a lot of pressure on us to catch up with the syllabus.

I have been on/off studies all the time and it will take me a while to prepare my mind to get back into study zone. Adding to the existing pressure, the extension of holidays has made us concerned and now we are not enjoying our holidays the way we are supposed to."