ROURKELA: A direction issued by the Sundargarh education office on revised summer timings has left around 2,400 government schools across the district in a fix.

Following the standard practice in summer, the schools rescheduled the timings from 6.30 am to 12.30 pm with effect from April 2. The new school timings were communicated to the students on Tuesday, the last working day of the academic session 2025-26.

But on Wednesday afternoon, the district education office issued instructions to all block education officers (BEOs) to follow the day school timing from 9.30 am to 4.30 pm till receipt of order from the School and Mass Education (SME) department.

With Wednesday being a holiday on account of Utkal Divas and the instruction arriving late in the afternoon, the school authorities were left struggling on how to effectively communicate the new timing to students and reschedule arrangements including preparations for mid-day-meals (MDM).

Soon after the directive, the BEOs of Kuanrmunda, Lathikata and Tangarpali blocks instructed headmasters/headmistresses of the schools under their jurisdiction to strictly follow the day timing. However, BEOs of the rest 14 blocks and city education officer of Rourkela Municipal Corporation did not issue any instruction.

Sources said the confusion over school timings would impact around 2.20 lakh students from classes 1 to 9 across the district.

Senior teacher of a government school in Kuanrmunda Sanjay Samal said as informed, all students would arrive for morning classes at 6.30 am on Thursday. But they would be asked to return home and come back to school three hours later at 9.30 am. He said it is likely that majority of students coming from distant rural areas would not come again and miss the first day of the new academic session.

Headmaster of HK Ray UP School at Rourkela Pramod Badatya said as per the standing order of 2014, the authorities have already asked the students to follow morning school timings from April 2. The MDM programme has been also been scheduled accordingly.

Additional district education officer Sadanand Pradhan said as per the government order last year, the morning school timing was followed from April 2. “We are waiting for a similar order for the new academic session and till then day school timing would continue. However, the district collector may change the timing considering the heat wave condition,” he added.