Nitish Kumar scraps order on curtailing school holidays that angered teachers

PATNA: The Bihar government on Monday evening withdrew a controversial order to curtail the number of holidays for the state’s schools from 22 to 8 over the next five months this year on the orders of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Kumar’s instructions to the officials to rescind the August 29 order comes just days after he unequivocally backed the decision by the education department run by additional chief secretary KK Pathak, asking what was wrong if the officials were reducing the number of holidays. “After all, everyone wants education in schools…. If anyone has anything to say, they should tell me. I am here to listen to all. He is doing a good job. I want all children to study,” he said on Saturday.

A government official said the chief minister revised his opinion after being briefed about the situation by a delegation of teacher leaders, including Bihar secondary teachers’ association president and former MP Shatrughan Prasad Singh and teacher representative MLCs Sanjiv Kumar Singh and Sanjay Kumar.

In a notification that followed this meeting, the director (secondary education) said: “The August 29 order comprising holiday list in government primary, middle and secondary schools is cancelled with immediate effect.”

The move comes just a day after the education department ordered the suspension of a school teacher in Khagaria district and initiated departmental proceedings against him for criticising the bureaucracy for the decision to keep schools open on Rakshabandhan

The teacher’s emotional outburst was captured on a mobile phone camera after his sister travelled from Bhagalpur to his middle school in Mathurapur to tie him a Rakhi. “This much freedom a teacher must have. If the order of the department proved to be a failure, how can teachers keep saying the contrary just to keep officials happy,” a school teacher later said on the suspension order.