Thiruvananthapuram: The working hours in government and aided high schools in Kerala will be extended by 30 minutes during the upcoming academic year. As per this significant decision, the classes will start 15 minutes early and end 15 minutes late. Consequently, the class time will be from 9.45 am to 4.15 pm.

It has also been decided to conduct classes on seven Saturdays during the academic year for high school students, ensuring that six successive working days don’t occur. In total, there will be 205 working days in high school.

Meanwhile, 200 working days have been fixed for upper primary (UP) classes in the upcoming academic year, including two Saturdays. The Saturdays on which the UP section will function will be decided, avoiding six days of continuous classes.

In lower primary (LP) classes, there would be 198 working days, avoiding public holidays and Saturdays. These days would be sufficient to meet the requirements of the education rules, which stipulate 800 academic hours for LP.

However, in high school, the rules stipulate 1,200 academic hours, for which it has been decided to conduct classes on seven Saturdays and extend the class time by half an hour. These decisions were taken at a meeting of the educational quality improvement programme supervisory committee (QIP) presided over by General Education Minister V Sivankutty.

Incidentally, another committee which conducted a study on reforming the school academic calendar had suggested that classes should be avoided at all levels on Saturdays. Instead, it recommended the extension of class time by one hour only in high school.

Meanwhile, it is pointed out that extending the academic time only for high school will create problems in schools which have high school and UP classes. Teachers said that it would cause issues such as difficulties in arranging school buses.

At present, the working hours of higher secondary classes in schools following the Kerala government syllabus are from 9 am to 4.45 pm, five days a week – from Monday to Friday. Teachers point out that the stipulations regarding academic hours are met with this class time.

No change in reopening day
Minister Sivankutty said that schools in the state will reopen on June 2, as announced earlier. “At present, we have not decided to change the reopening day,” he said.

Referring to demands to postpone the reopening considering the heavy rains, the minister said, “there is no need to change the date under the present circumstances. Let us wait for the weather forecast for the coming days. We will be considering postponement of the reopening only if some serious situation occurs.”