Keeping in view the unrest caused by violent protests due to Viennnas Sunday shoot-out,yesterday the District Magistrate Ludhiana ordered all the educational institutes of the city to remain closed today,i.e. on May 28. Similar orders were issued by him on the evening of May 26 for May 27. But these orders created confusion among school teachers and students of schools situated on city outskirts and problem for those who teach and study in rural area schools and colleges. Talking to Newsline,headmistress of a Government High School,said,I received many calls in the morning from my subordinates to know if the school will function today or not. I was not sure as we neither got any clear-cut instructions from the officers of district education department nor from the district administration. When I reached the school,half of the staff was absent. After an hour,I got a few calls from the nearby schools with same query. The situation left the parents confused too. Deepak and Roshan Lal. parents of school-going children,said,The DM ordered closure of schools,but school of our ward,which is situated on Hambran Road functioned as usual. A group of school teachers of a private school,said,The instructions for closing down schools should have been very clear-cut. Our principal said that she did not get any instructions in this regard,so it functioned as usual till 11.30 am. Meanwhile,teachers working in rural area schools faced transportation problem in reaching their destinations. Pushpinder Kaur and Raminder Singh,both school teachers,said,Our school is nearly 25 km from the city. It was on May 26,when I returned home after waiting for a bus at Agar Nagar bus stop,as there was no bus service towards that area. Yesterday,I reached the school well in time but faced a lot of difficulty comng back home because of skeltal bus service. It would have been better had the district administration closed down the schools of entire district as there was no transportation. Keeping in view the incidents of the past few days,we took leave today. When asked,Amarajit Kaur,District Education Officer (Secondary),Ludhiana,said,We did not get separate instructions from district administration about rural area schools. Many school teachers and principals also called me up seeking clarification on the matter. I told them that they may close down their respective schools as a precautionary measure. All this has no doubt affected the teaching work in the schools. From June 1,all the government schools will close down for a month-long summer vacation. On May 31,it is Sunday. And if keep our school closed on May 29 and May 30,we will not be able to give holiday home work to our students. And after the vacations,all the students will come like clean slate, said a worried school principal. The headmistress of a government school said,So much administrative work is lying pending. We are running short of time to report it on time due to closure of schools as many teachers could not complete their work as they could not reach due to transportation problem.
