Lagatar24 Desk
Patna, July 26: Around 37 public schools in five blocks in the predominantly Muslim Kishanganj region of Bihar have begun to observe Fridays as their weekly vacation in place of Sunday, according to representatives of the state education department.16 schools in the Pothia section of the district are open on Sundays but are closed on Fridays.
“Thirty-seven schools in the district remain closed on Fridays and this had been going on for a very long time. Before 1990, Kishanganj was a sub-division of the Purnia district. The instruction to keep schools closed on Friday was issued by an officer of the then Purnia district, which is being investigated,” said District Education Officer Subhash Kumar Gupta.
Gupta asserted that the procedure was normal and not out of the ordinary. Gupta used the Vaishali district as an illustration, claiming that numerous schools there used the same procedure.
However, several members of the Hindu community asserted that because of the custom, instructors who attend classes on Sundays are unable to spend time with their families and kids.
Earlier in July, reports claimed that in Jharkhand’s Jamtara and Dumka, schools were changing their weekly offs from Sundays to Fridays.