Bowing to the demand of college teachers the higher education department has rolled back its plan to reduce summer vacations by ten days. In the new academic calendar the department had reduced the vacation from 45 days to 35 triggering resentment among teachers. The Garhwal University Teachers Association (GUTA) had even threatened to undertake work boycott from May 15.
The Higher education Director K C Malkani told The Pioneer that a decision regarding suspending the implementation of the academic calendar was taken after due deliberation on Monday. The new academic calendar was issued by the department on April 01. The calendar was prepared after a high level meeting conducted on February 19 sought to bring uniformity in the functioning of the colleges of the State. The calendar had a reduced summer vacations.
When contacted the state President of GUTA, S K Tyagi told The Pioneer that the rollback of department is a victory of college teachers. On the question of association’s plan on the proposed call of work boycott, Tyagi said that a final decision regarding the future course of action would be taken after a meeting of office bearers of GUTA on Tuesday. It is worth mentioning here that the work boycott call by GUTA which is an association of teachers of government aided degree colleges caused anxiety to the state government as it has put the conduction of the examination of H N B Garhwal Central University and Sri Dev Suman Uttarakhand University in jeopardy. It is learnt that a worried State Government intervened and asked the higher education department to sort out the matter with the teacher organisations.
The association of Government college teachers, the Federation of Uttarakhand Government Degree Colleges Teachers Association (FUGDCTA) has also welcomed the decision to suspend the plan to decrease summer vacations. The State President of the association Yatish Vashistha said the decision to curtail vacations was unfortunate and it is good that it has been reversed now.