Bihar Govt’s List of School Holidays in 2024 Shared With Misleading Claim

The notice, issued by Bihar's Education Department, clearly mentions that it applies to Urdu schools in the state.

The screenshot is being shared with a misleading claim about holidays for government schools in Bihar.

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

Social media users shared a screenshot of a notice issued by the Bihar government's Education Department, which carries a list of school holidays for state-run schools in Bihar in 2024.

The claim: The notice is being shared to claim that there has been a drastic drop in holidays for Hindu festivals while increasing the number of holidays for Muslim festivals.

Who shared it?: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Giriraj Singh shared the list on his official X (formerly Twitter) account, calling the state the "Islamic Republic of Bihar."

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archives of more posts sharing the same claim can be seen here, here, and here.)

But...?: The claim is misleading. The notice in the viral claim shows a list of holidays specifically for Urdu schools in Bihar and does not apply to all government schools in the state.

How did we find out?: First, we carefully read the notice in the screenshot, which is in Hindi.

• We saw that the first paragraph of the notice clearly states that the notice lists holidays for Urdu medium state-run and aided minority educational institutions for students studying in pre-primary, primary, and secondary schools.

The notice states that it is for Urdu schools at the top.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

• Next, we looked for more information surrounding the circular on social media.

• This led us to the Bihar Education Department's Facebook page, which published a press note regarding the now-viral circular on 28 November.

We found a press note regarding the misleading claim.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

"It has come to our attention that social media posts and newspapers have shared misleading statements about the holiday list for 2024," the note read, adding that "two separate holiday lists are prepared for regular schools and Urdu schools (notice number 2693 and notice number 2694)."

Addressing concerns about a lack of holidays on the birth anniversaries of notable people, the note elaborated that while some of them coincided with the students' summer vacations, "schools remained open" for the remaining ones even in previous academic years.

• The note also mentioned that there was no change in the total number of holidays as compared to previous years, which still added up to 60 days.

What about the other list?: While looking for more details about the other list (number 2693) mentioned in the note, we came across a Facebook post which had screenshots of both notices.

• On comparing the two, we were able to confirm that the total number of days off was the same on both lists.

• This table for compares holidays in 2024 for state-run Urdu and regular schools. Events with differing holidays (duration or day off) for both kinds of schools have been highlighted.

Holidays differ for regular and Urdu schools on eight ocassions.

(Source: The Quint)

Conclusion: The viral claim that the list seen in the screenshot shows a reduction in school holidays for Hindu festivals and a higher number of days off on Islamic ones for all government schools in Bihar is misleading.

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