We all know that in the Northern Hemisphere the school year runs from September to July/August while in the Southern, it runs from January to November/December - summer to summer in both cases.
Does anyone know what system countries that lie on or near the Equator adopt? (I’m thinking Brazil, Kenya, India…)
Grim
Well, Singapore has four terms which (in 2003) begin on 2 January and end on 21 November. So it looks like they, at any rate, run with the Calendar year.
Off topic, but amusing: someone in Barbados once asked me if it was in July or January that the days were longer. Barbados is about 13 deg N, so they do get some variation, but to them the seasons are the wet (our summer) and the dry. Aside from that and the accompanying mosquitos, they pay no attention to seasons. I wonder what lattitude people do start caring. Certainly both southern California and southern Florida have seasons.
Note that in the US, the reason summers were traditionally summer vacations was so that the kids could work on the farms during the growing season, esp. at harvest time.
I know of a school system that in the '70s had to work its schedule around the local harvest time (and possibly still does). In some places there was a break for planting time, return to school, then summer off until after the harvest and back to school. Some schools still have to wrestle with deer hunting season conflicts.
Since the farming issue is the same in the Southern Hemisphere, but reversed seasons, ditto reversed school year. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised that in equatorial regions, the school year is also based on the local harvest time of important crops. (Which are affected by wet/dry seasons.) Obviously not a problem in a non-agri. city state such as Singapore.
[hijack]
My folks live in South Florida and there are two seasons. In Season (when the snow birds are there) and Not In Season (the rest of the year!) [/highjack]
http://www.world-links.org/english/html/calendar.html
Consult World School Calendars.