Delhi schools ordered to close early for summer as temperatures soar

All schools in Delhi have been ordered to take a “mandatory summer vacation” from 11 May amid a heatwave that has swept the city.Officials say temperatures will continue to rise in the coming weeks, after reaching 44C (111F) on Monday – the hottest day of the year so far.

Schools in other parts of India have already been forced to close because of heatwaves and a drought that has affected 330 million people across India.

Delhi’s state-run schools finish for the summer on 10 May anyway, but private and municipal schools’ term dates vary. Many schools’ end-of-term tests will now need to be rescheduled.

Nav Bharti public school was due to break up for the summer on 18 May. Its headteacher, Sanjay Bhartiya, said the government’s decision would cause a scheduling nightmare. “We had cycle tests and unit tests scheduled for the second week of May, so now all our schedule will be disturbed,” he said.

“We are going to follow the government’s order, there is no alternative right now. But in the school calendar, one week matters a lot. We understand the government’s concern over the heatwave but this abrupt decision will definitely affect us.”

Madhulika Sen, headteacher at Tagore International school, Vasant Vihar, which will lose three working days because of the government’s order, was less forgiving. “Where the temperature is concerned, the government schools have no infrastructure – no fans, no back up for electricity, drinking water. They can’t handle the heatwave, so it makes sense for the government schools to be closed.”

“But I don’t know why private schools have been affected because we have all the infrastructure – many schools even have air conditioning. The government just doesn’t want to make it sound as though children in government schools are finishing earlier than private school students,” she said.

For some though, the decision is a practical one. Madhurie Singh, the founder of a school comparison website who has two children, said: “The most important thing is health. Distances in Delhi are huge, and kids can spend an hour or more travelling to school.

“Over a period of time, the climate is changing, and perhaps it is time to look at how the school year can be restructured around that change.”

Extreme weather is becoming increasingly common in India. Last year, hundreds of people died in floods in the southern city of Chennai.

The heatwave is adding to the woes of millions of people who are suffering from drought. Weak monsoons for the last two years have forced hundreds of migrants to leave their ancestral lands in search of water in the cities. Rural parts of the country have been hit the worst, with farmers suffering from poor harvests and no clean water to drink or wash.

The scarcity of water has caused political tensions, with states in northern India battling over control of rivers. Armed guards have been deployed at dams to protect what is becoming an increasingly precious resource.

Earlier this year, rioters in the state of Haryana cut off the water supply to Delhi until the government met their demands to change their caste status.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has promised long-term solutions to drought during election rallies, but so far, government efforts to provide relief to the millions of people in drought-hit regions have been slow and ineffective.