Despite govt’s directive, most schools, colleges remain open

Despite the Punjab government urging schools and educational institutions to close on Saturday as a mark of respect to former Prime Minister I K Gujral, who belonged to the state and died on Friday, almost all private schools and colleges in the city remained open. Government schools and colleges, however, were closed after the announcement. The major schools of the city including DAV Public School, Tagore Public School, Kundan Vidya Mandir, GGN Public School, Guru Nanak International School and others were all open on Saturday. Similarly colleges affiliated to Punjab Technical Education (PTU) were also opened in wake of exams going on. The spokesperson of PTU, said: "Our university has its own holiday calendar which we follow and thus we were not bound to close the university today."

"We knew about the holiday announcement but due to the exams we were not able to close down the college," added the spokesperson of Punjab College of Technical Education, Baddowal. While Sat Paul Mittal School celebrated its annual day, BCM Arya Model Senior Secondary School had its annual exhibition in the school premises. "It was not possible to delay the exhibition and thus we were not able to close the school, however we knew about the announcement," said Rachna Malhotra, teacher, BCM Arya Model Senior Secondary School.

While Suman Arora, principal, Tagore Public School, was not available for comment, an employee of the school 'confirmed that they knew about the announcement' but refused to comment on why school was not closed. Navita Puri, principal, Kundan Vidya Mandir was too not available for the comment.

Avtar Singh, DPI schools, elementary, when contacted, said: "We informed all the schools in the region about the closure orders to pay respect to the late PM but we cannot force anyone. Its bad if they didn't follow it. However, we ensured that all government schools were closed."

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