Jamshedpur, April 20: The district education officer (DEO), East Singhbhum, has directed all the government schools in the district to be closed by 10:30 a.m.
The DEO, Mukesh Kumar Sinha on the directives of Amitabh Kaushal, deputy commissioner, East Singhbhum, sent directives to all government schools to adhere to the decision till schools close for summer vacation on May 23.
The directive is applicable right from class I to class XII. The timing from will be from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Private English-medium schools have already implemented the timing from Wednesday and it will continue till summer vacation, which starts from May 8.
“We are concerned over the situation. As of now the government schools will change their timing but we will see whether they will be able to continue so long. In that case we will have to announce vacation early,” said Prakash Kumar, additional district program officer, East Singhbhum.
School staff said they had never come across a situation where lesson times had to be changed because of the temperature. “The month of April this year is warmer than usual from the beginning, and suddenly from the middle of the month the temperature shot up to almost 45 degrees Celsius, which is something completely unheard of,” said Pranjal Das, a senior teacher.
She added that the heat was so fierce that some students were close to falling ill and had to be asked to take rest. “The directive…regarding retiming of the classes was a big relief to both us and the students, and even on those days when the classes were retimed, we asked the students to drink an adequate amount of water while at school,” said Das.
Met officials of Jamshedpur, have also predicted hotter days ahead with no sign of rain before monsoon. He said that when the storms disrupt sea breeze and delay the onset. This results in the temperature soaring above normal. The dry westerly and northwesterly winds from Bay of Bengal are making the temperature rise.
Sources added that all private and government-run schools are mulling over to change the school timings due to harsh weather conditions. Meanwhile city-based senior doctor, Dr. U K Srivastava said that people should take extra care during such sweltering weather conditions.
“I am of the opinion that special arrangements should be made in all government hospitals and community health centers across the city to treat those suffering from sunstroke. There should be arrangement of air-conditioners or air-coolers for the treatment of such patients,” he noted.