School Education Saga-X: Are TG school holidays discriminatory?

Hyderabad: Do schools exist for students, or do students exist for schools? Should holiday policy for schools be student-centric or discriminatory school-centric?

These issues come to the fore following the short-term holidays notified by the Telangana School Education Department (TSED), and the rationale for the same.

Take, for example, the Dasara vacation of 13 days for schools from October 2 to 14 in 2024, as per the Academic Calendar for 2024-25.

It notifies a five-day Christmas vacation for schools from December 23 to 27 in 2024. However, these five-day holidays are exclusively meant for Christian Missionary Schools. Similarly, it notifies five-day short-term holidays from January 13 to 17, 2025 for Sankranti vacation. However, the catch in the case of both the Christmas and Sankranti Holidays is that students studying in Christian Missionary Schools get five-day holidays in the event of Christmas. Does it mean that students belonging to the Christian faith but studying in other than Christian Minority Schools will not have Christmas holidays? Similarly, students of all schools other than the Christian Missionary Schools will have a five-day Sankranti vacation. Why the students studying in the Christian Missionary Schools cannot celebrate and have five-day Sankranti holidays? What is the rationale for coming up with such religious-based exclusivity and inclusivity in the case of school children?

In contrast, with a sizeable Christian population, the State School Education Department of Kerala does not show any such discriminatory holiday academic calendar.

For example, the State of Kerala celebrates Onam festival (like Sankranti) which is rooted in that State's cultural heritage and traditions. Recognising this, the schools during the academic year 2024-25 will be closed for Onam vacation on September 13 and will reopen on September 23.

Similarly, the schools would be closed for Christmas vacation on December 20 and reopen on December 30 in 2024. Both for Onam and Christmas, the vacation is applicable for all the schools. This has been the tradition being followed by several states across the country which does not discriminate against school children's holidays in the name of religion. Then, what was the ratio for the TSED to notify such holidays?

Speaking to The Hans India, a former official from the State Education Department (SED) said, every minority institution, Christian Minority Institutions or otherwise should follow a legal stipulation. The rule stipulates that the school can enjoy the minority status only as long as it meets the criteria of admitting a certain number/percentage of students belonging to that minority community. “When a minority institution fails to fulfill this legal mandate, it will have to forgo the minority institution tag,” he added.

Against this backdrop, how many minority institutions in Telangana are fulfilling the legal criteria by admitting the stipulated number or percentage of students belonging to the community under which it has claimed minority institution status? When this is the case, how could the TSED or state government make exclusive provisions for any minority institutions as part of its academic calendar? When Onam, a native cultural festive tradition in Kerala is allowed to be celebrated by all school children, why is Telangana shunning it for students studying in Christian Missionary Schools to celebrate Sankranti or Bathukamma festival?