The Kerala Pradesh School Teachers Association (KPSTA), one of the petitioners in a case challenging the decision of the Director of General Education (DGE) declaring Saturdays as working days in the school academic calendar for the current academic year, has welcomed the Kerala High Court judgment setting aside the DGEโs order.
The KPSTA, in a statement, said the court judgment was a setback to the government that had made Saturdays working days without any discussions. In this matter, the government had failed to observe basic procedures while implementing new policies. It had failed to take into the account the impact of its decision on students, parents, and schools and taken a unilateral decision, the KPSTA said on Thursday.
Teachersโ organisations, including the pro-Communist Party of India All Kerala School Teachersโ Union, had staged a series of protests against making Saturdays working days, including staging dharnas and boycotting teacher cluster meetings on Saturdays.
Meanwhile, the Kerala School Teachersโ Association (KSTA) has termed the HC order a setback to the DGEโs unilateral stance on issues and demanded that the academic calendar be prepared again scientifically. Even preliminary procedures followed before preparing the calendar were not completed. Nor were any discussions held by the DGE before bringing out the calendar. The problems that would crop up had been pointed out by the KSTA many a time, and the DGEurged to roll back decisions that would put additional pressure on students, the KSTA said.
