Thiruvananthapuram: Action would be taken against nearly 4,000 schools in Kerala for violating the guidelines for conducting Onam examinations, the state Education Department said on Tuesday.

"The new rules are very clear. There can be no examination during Onam (first term) and Christmas (second term). The new guidelines that came into effect from this academic year state that the schools can conduct only half-yearly and final examinations," Mohammed Hanish, director of public instruction, told sources.

He said 14 district education officers would submit a report on the list of schools which conducted examinations and violated the government directive.

"I have asked the officials to report the matter because it is a clear-cut violation of government rules. Even though the state government does not pay salaries of teachers of private schools, they are duty bound to comply with the guidelines of the Education Department. Once the report comes in, action would be taken against the headmasters where the violation took place," he added.

While 30 per cent of the schools have violated the guideline by printing question papers and conducting examinations, some schools are reported to have conducted examinations without printed question papers.

In about 12,000 schools in Kerala, 4.8 million students study, including around 1.6 million students in the government-run schools, 2.9 million in government-aided and 300,000 students in the unaided (private schools) which follow the Kerala state syllabus.

"There was no Onam examination conducted by us and we followed the guideline by conducting unit test only. The half-yearly examination according to the new guideline will be held from October 15," a senior teacher of a leading private school in the capital city told IANS.