Comeback time

Patna, Jan. 16: With the weather conditions improving, the prolonged winter vacation of school students will be over tomorrow.

Human resource development department principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh said: “The schools will reopen on Monday as the weather conditions have improved.”

With the temperature becoming normal, the HRD department has asked the schools to resume classes. The winter holiday of schools was extended twice because of severe cold conditions.

Most of the students had a blast during the extended vacation but their parents were worried over completion of their syllabus. So were senior students. The news of resumption of classes has come as a relief to them.

Apeksha Jain, a Class IX student of Delhi Public School, said: “It is good that the schools are reopening. We can now start the revisions for the final examinations.”

Jain said the students were unable to contact the teachers in the past few days to clarify doubts because the schools were closed.

Swati Sharma, who will take the board exam this year, said: “Since the school was closed, I had to study and practise sums at home. But without the help and guidance of our teachers, my progress has been slow.”

Sharma added, “The syllabus is still incomplete in my school. I am worried about how it will be finished.”

Most schools have planned to schedule classes on Saturdays to catch up with the syllabus. Others have cancelled or cut down on extra-curricular activities.

Teachers, too, are feeling the heat, as it is their responsibility to finish the syllabus. Most of them are worried about meeting the deadline.

“The pressure is on us to complete the syllabus,” said a schoolteacher.

He said that formally completing the syllabus was not enough if the students did not get enough time to absorb and understand what was taught to them.

CBSE schools have the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) to worry about as well.

“It is high time the students return to school, as the examinations are knocking on the doors. CCE requires us to continuously evaluate the students. Just finishing the syllabus is not enough,” said K.K. Mishra, a teacher at St Michael’s High School.