Monday 9 November has been declared a special holiday for all Tamil-medium schools in five provinces to mark Deepavali, Hiru News reports.
The provinces named are the Western, Central, Uva, Sabaragamuwa and Eastern provinces, and the notice has been issued by the relevant provincial Governors’ offices, Hiru News reported.
Why Monday
Deepavali falls on Sunday 8 November this year, which is already a non-school day and a public holiday. The special holiday therefore applies to the following school day, Monday the 9th, so that pupils and staff observing the festival are not required to return to class the morning after.
The measure is a provincial one. Because it is issued by Governors’ offices rather than by the national Education Ministry, the arrangement applies province by province and does not extend to Sinhala-medium schools or to provinces outside the five named.
A caution on the province list
Readers in the Eastern Province should confirm the position with their school or provincial education authority before relying on it.
Hiru News names five provinces. This desk has seen other reporting of the same announcement giving a shorter list of four — Western, Central, Uva and Sabaragamuwa, without the Eastern Province — but was unable to retrieve and date that report well enough to cite it, so the discrepancy cannot be resolved here. Hiru’s five-province list is what is sourced above; the fifth province is the point of doubt.
Some versions of this announcement in past years have also set a compensating school day on a later Saturday to make up the lost teaching time. The Hiru filing does not mention one, and this desk could not confirm whether one applies.
Not reported
The Hiru filing does not name the Governors who issued the notice, say whether the decision was requested by a ministry or a member of Parliament, or state whether the lost day will be made up. It does not say whether Tamil-medium schools in the Northern, North-Western, North-Central or Southern provinces are covered by any separate arrangement.
Related: additional SLTB buses for Deepavali and the ITEC Deepavali lamp display in Colombo.
Sources: Hiru News.
