Kerala - Kochi   

Lighter bags still a distant dream for school children

KOCHI: Lighter days seem to be a distant dream for schoolchildren in the city, with major proposals for reducing the weight of their school bags remaining in cold storage.

Studies by the Cochin branch of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics had found that children in the kindergarten level had been using bags weighing around 450 grams. The total weight of the bag containing books, lunch and snack boxes and water bottle was estimated at 4 kg.

Recommending that the maximum weight of a school bag used by students in the kindergarten level should not exceed 200 grams, the academy had recommended a design of a school bag for kindergarten level with the following dimensions: height (27 cms), width (24 cms) and breadth (8.5 cm).

The bag had two compartments and space for holding a water bottle. Paediatricians had suggested that the bag could be made out of thin nylon material. But the proposal could not be implemented for want of support from the school authorities.

Education Department sources said that a proposal to use paper sheets instead of notebooks to reduce the weight of school was also gathering dust. Investigations by department officials found that schools had not implemented the proposal last academic year.

According to the original proposal, students were told to use A4 size papers instead of notebooks for recording lectures in various subjects. The directive was a follow-up of a recommendation made by the State Human Rights Commission directing education department authorities to initiate steps for reducing the weight of schoolbags.

School teachers said that the proposal failed to work, as textbooks for students between classes 1 and 10 were not classified as per the syllabus prescribed for the three academic terms during a year.

Sources in the CBSE said that stringent directives would be issued to school managements to do away with heavy school bags during the ensuing academic year.

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