Thiruvananthapuram: The revised academic calendar has been published by the department of general education after the controversial decision to make the first five days of the summer vacation as working days for students, until class ten, was withdrawn. As per the revised calendar, the schools in the state would close down for the summer vacation on 27 March. The schools are closed early as 28, 29 and 31 March are Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter respectively.
Meanwhile, as decided earlier, thirteen Saturdays, including eleven Saturdays on the weeks that do not have six continuous working days, would be additional working days for classes until standard ten. However, the third (16) and fourth (23) Saturdays in March have been made working days making those weeks with six continuous working days. As 12 March would be a regional holiday in Thiruvananthapuram due to Ayya Vaikunta Swamy Jayanthi, the week would have six working days only in that region. Meanwhile, Saturdays aren’t working days for higher secondary and vocational higher secondary sections.
As per the calendar, The LSS and USS exams would be held in February. The dates of the SSLC exam scheduled to begin in March aren’t announced. Meanwhile, the plus one and plus two exams are from 6 – 26 March. The VHSE exams begin on 8 March.
The first terminal exam is from 17 – 24 August. The schools would close for the Onam holidays on 25 August and reopen on 4 September. The second terminal exam begins on 14 December and ends on 21 December. The Christmas holidays are from 22 – 31 December.
Classes after exam
Students of classes 1 – 9 may have to attend classes even after the end of the annual exam. Usually, the schools are closed for the summer vacation on the last day of the annual exam. There wouldn’t be any classes after that. However, as per the latest academic calendar, the annual exams for classes 1 – 9 have been scheduled for the first week of March. But, the schools close only on 27 March; there would be two more weeks of classes after the exams. The same schedule had appeared in the academic calendar that was published initially. Minister V Sivankutty had said that there wouldn’t be any classes after the end of the exam. However, the same has been repeated in the revised calendar too.