Delhi Govt Wants To Do Away With Two Shifts In Schools

With 30 new school buildings in the pipeline, the Delhi government’s Education Department plans to eventually do away with double-shift schools.

Currently, the Delhi government operates 1,027 schools from 700-odd buildings across the city in double shifts — one school operates in the morning shift and another, usually a boys’ school, in the evening. The hours of double-shift schools are half an hour less than those of single-shift schools.

In the last few months, there has been a focus on the construction of 11,000 new classrooms in existing school buildings. Now, the land has been identified and acquired for 30 new school buildings, of which estimates have been submitted for 24.

“At first, room construction had been the priority to resolve the situation in schools where the pupil-teacher ratio was unfavourable — in some cases, with one teacher for 50 students. But with the construction of new schools, the aim is to eventually move double-shift schools out of a single building and make them single shift. Running double-shift schools is not an academically sound thing to do,” said an education department official.

According to education department officials, the main advantage of creating single-shift schools will be “better use of time and space”.

“After classes are concluded in the afternoon, the school premises can be used for sports and co-curricular activities. The hope is to also be able to introduce vocational training programmes in the premises in the afternoons,” an official said.

Officials said priority areas for new school buildings are densely populated parts of the city like the North East district, where multiple schools have over 2,000 students in each shift.

Construction work will be sanctioned after the Model Code of Conduct is lifted.

(Source: IndianExpress Education)