Manama: Kuwaiti elementary school educators have called for a review of a decision that combined the mid-year break with national celebrations off days and gave students a one-month holiday.
“School exams end on February 3 and students then have a break before they start the third term,” educators said. “However, the decision to extend the holidays to include the celebrations marking the national days at the end of the month means that students will not go back to class until early March. This is not advisable from an education point of view,” the educators said, local Arabic daily Al Watan reported on Sunday.
The long break will affect the students’ academic abilities and will them lose their focus and it will also disrupt the school’s plans to end the curriculum on time before the start of the summer break, they said.
The education ministry reportedly combined the mid-year and the national celebration breaks as a means to fight the high level of absenteeism among students.
Schools have been complaining that students tended to extend their off days whenever they were near the weekend or close to other days off.
Officials said that the ministry decided to combine the days off this year after it looked into three suggestions on ways to fight off absenteeism.
One proposal called keeping the breaks as they were and look for other ways to address the absenteeism phenomenon, the officials said.
However, the second proposal called for combining the two breaks even if it meant giving the whole month of February off.
According to the third proposal, students should start the third trimester one day after ending the second trimester. However, this suggestion was turned down on the grounds that students needed a break between school terms.
