Saturday, January 1, 2011

Cold calls the shots in Gurgaon

The government school students in Gurgaon are having a tough time this winter. Unlike private schools, the government institutions are yet to declare their winter vacations this year. This means that despite the bone-chilling weather, students are being forced to attend school every morning. To make matters worse, the revised, delayed school timings are not helping students much.

Keeping in mind the cold weather, many of these schools had decided to delay their timings by an hour or so and most of the schools are now operating in the 9 am-3 pm shift.

However students as well as the teachers complain that the changed timings have become a headache instead of being a help, as traffic remains at its peak at those hours.

Balkishan Yadav, president of Haryana School Lecturer Association said, There is too much of traffic during those hours. Not only the students, even the teachers get late. It is especially difficult for those travelling from Delhi.

Echoing similar sentiments, Suraj, a resident of Palam Vihar, said, There is too much of traffic and I am often punished for reaching school late. The cold weather makes things worse. Some like Gulam Rasul says that since their timings are delayed, it has become difficult to manage their tution classes along with their homeworks.

Apart from these, poor infrastructure makes life even more difficult for students of government schools. The weather is dark and gloomy and manyatimes the lights are not working in the classrooms. We cant even have classes outside because it has been raining for the past two days. Due to all this, we cant teach students properly, said a teacher of a government school in Gurgaon.

Another student, Ravi, said that their school was conducting classes outdoors despite the rains and that they were made to sit on the wet grounds under the tree.

District Education Officer, Jyoti Choudhary, said that they are looking in to the requests of the teachers and students and schools may function between 8:30am and 2:30pm.

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