It’s a burden that could be well avoided. Hapless school-going children in the country have little choice but lug around bag loads of books, which more often than not are too much to handle.
But not any more. Guidelines recently issued by the Ministry of Human Resource Development put a bar on the load of school bags.
Positive step
Both parents and experts have welcomed the move, but feel that making it work is easier said than done. To make it effective, some even suggested a revamp of school curricula.
“This was long overdue. My daughter who is in Class I goes to school carrying a bag that weighs around 4 kg. Apart from books, lunchbox and water bottle also make her bag heavy. If schools can put up water purifiers, then there is no need for them to carry water bottles,” said Dolly Agarwal whose daughter is studying in Noida’s Cambridge Public School.
Alpana Dubey, another parent, said, “My 10-year-old son generally takes 14 books — including notebooks — everyday which makes his bag very heavy. With homework given on a regular basis, children have also to take books back and forth on a daily basis.”
According to the HRD circular, the weight of school bags for Classes I and II should not be more than 1.5 kg, 2-3 kg for students of Classes III and V, and up to 4 kg for of Classes VI and VII. And it can be 4.5 kg and 5 kg, respectively, for students of Classes VIII-IX and X.
“It is a welcome step but I am a bit apprehensive about its implementation. Putting a certain digit as a weight of school bag would be of little help,” said Anusha Sharma, Principal, Study Hall’s Vidhyasthali School in UP.
More important is to change the design of the curriculum and make it more digital, she said. Also, students should be given reading and writing material in schools instead of their carrying them back home.
Carrying heavy school bags can have a negative impact on child’s body. Indu Rathore, a senior paediatrician, said, “Carrying heavy bags can lead to deformity of the spinal cord. Bones are very weak till the age of 12 and lifting heavy weights can affect growing bones and muscles”.
Significantly, the restriction on weight of school bags was first recommended about 25 years ago by a committee headed by noted scientist the late Yash Pal in 1993.