Policy calls for cap on weight of school bags

NEW DELHI: The weight of a schoolbag across classes 1 to 12 should be 10% of the body weight of the student carrying it, according to one of the suggestions of the School Bag Policy 2020 prepared by the Union education ministry.

Students of pre-primary classes should carry no schoolbags at all, the policy said, adding that there should also be a ceiling on the weight of textbooks and a mechanism to check the weight of bags at schools.

The policy — in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) — also suggested that there should be no homework up to Class 2. Homework requiring a time of maximum of two hours a week is allowed for Classes 3 to 5, five-six hours a week for classes 6 to 8, and 10-12 hours a week for classes 9-12.

Following a direction by the Madras high court in May 2018, the education ministry formed a team of experts in October that year, with Ranjana Arora, the head of the Department of Curriculum Studies at National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), as its convener to formulate a policy on schoolbags. This team conducted a survey across the country covering 350 schools, nearly 3000 parents and over 3600 students. While 38.9% of the school heads said they felt the burden of schoolbags was a problem, 77.7% of the parents and 74.4% of the students surveyed had a similar view.

Under the school bag policy, the panel said every school needs to keep a digital weighing machine on the school premises. A school bag needs to be lightweight with proper compartments, and contain twopadded and adjustable straps that can be squarely fit on both the shoulders, it said. Wheeled carriers should not be allowed as they may hurt children while climbing stairs, the policy document, seen by HT, said.

Schools should ensure that mid-day meals are adequate and of good quality so that children don’t have to carry lunch boxes, it added.

“It shall be the duty and responsibility of school management to provide good quality potable water in sufficient quantity accessible to all the students in the school to avoid carrying water bottle in school bag or reduce its size,” it said.

The class time table needs to be made flexible, providing adequate space for sports and physical education, reading of books available in school other than textbook etc., it added.

The policy document also said the weight of each textbook could be printed on it by publishers. It added that lockers in classes may be installed for students with disabilities for storing and retrieving books and other items. The issues related to heavy school bags need to be included in the pre-service and in-service teachers’ education curriculum, the document said.

According to the policy, for students of classes 1 to 2, schoolbags must not weigh over 2.2kg (the average body weight of a child in that age group is around 22kg). For Classes 3-5, the upper limit is 2.5kg. For Classes 5-7, they should not be more than 3kg. For Class 8, a school bag should not weigh over 4kg. For Classes 9-10, the upper limit is 4.5kg. And for

Classes 11 to 12, it is 5kg. The school diary should be avoided or made thinner, according to the policy. For pre-primary students, the policy recommends no textbooks. For Class I, a maximum of three textbooks with a total weight of 1078 grams are proposed.

For Classes 2 to 3, textbooks can weigh up to 1,080 grams. The chart moves on progressively to allow up to 13 textbooks weighing a maximum of 4,182 grams for students of Class 10.

The education ministry has written to states informing that all relevant suggestions should be implemented.

Schools in most Indian states have been closed since midMarch in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some states have allowed students of classes 9-12 to come to the institutes for guidance from their teachers.