Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Carrying the burden on shoulders

Why are school bags getting bigger by the day. S. Aishwarya checks it out

PHOTO: M. MOORTHY

LOADING AND UNLOADING Difficult job for kids

Imagine this scenario. Kaavya, an eight-year-old schoolgirl, is intently listening to her teacher inside a crowded tuition centre in any city. She sits stooping over the wooden desk, a posture that afflicts every alternate student across the country. Thanks to the schoolbags. Loaded with books, the frail shoulders of school students are forced to bear it all.

Most children find it difficult even to rest on a sturdy back support, leave alone sitting straight without it. The worrisome factor is that the stoops and squats of students become a part of life once they begin the day carrying heavy school bags and end the day with the same mass, if not more.

Worthy proposal

The Indian Academy of Paediatricians has come up with a proposal to reduce the weight of schoolbags (with the lunch pack) to 200 grams or less at the Kindergarten level. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) too is keen on reducing the workload of children and has been dispatching frequent circulars, for the past few years.

It envisages that schools be given the freedom to opt out of exam-based assessment. It proposes methodologies to reduce homework by introducing optional level of competency for students of same standards. But whether all CBSE schools follow this is a big question. Many schools have adopted a method of separating the homework and classwork notebooks.

But the problem is doubled as the students are asked to submit the homework notebooks, almost, on a daily basis. "My child carries more than 10 books and notebooks every day. At the end of the day, he is exhausted and unable to complete his homework," laments Nalina Venkatraman, mother of a sixth-standard student.

Students also echo the same problem. "Last year, we had seven classes a day with over a dozen books to carry. This year, there is an extra pair of books," avers Ravishankar, a student of CBSE school. The burden of carrying additional books also forces parents to opt for either private or school transport facility to send their children to schools. But owing to lack of space for baggage, students who get crammed in auto-rickshaws and school vans are forced to carry their bags athwart, which only worsen the problem.

Much to parents' concern, the archaic way of carrying separate lunch bags is no longer in vogue. Even the traditional two compartmental school bags have given way to bags with multi-provisional facility. This encourages more stuffing and sloshing inside. But there are exceptions too.

"Big bags are banned," reads the welcome-board of Sivananda Balalaya, a CBSE school.

Distinctive method

The school follows a distinctive method to restrain students from carrying huge bags. "Students are tempted to stuff more if the bag is big. It gives them a trendy feeling when their stuff is spread in all compartments. Hence the ban," says its Correspondent K.G. Meenakshi. The school is also planning to coordinate with a bag manufacturer to facilitate uniformity in size of bags across the standards. Educationists feel bookless culture is not feasible as children are more inclined to learn from colourful books rather than mere teaching. The major contribution to the load comes from umpteen bound notebooks that are stacked in the bags.

Technically, CBSE has reduced the total number of subjects to three for class I, with Maths, Language and English. But the `supplementary' subjects such as environmental science and moral science, which have been put into practice in some schools, add to children's woes.

"CBSE is definitely not for heavier books," assures Ms. Meenakshi.

"Apart from physical burden, the students are psychologically affected when confronted with heavier books. It gives them a sense of helplessness," reiterates the principal of Akilandeshwari Vidhyalaya R.Dhanam. "To reduce the burden of books, we supply two sets of books till class VII. On an average, only three subjects are dealt with in a day so that they don't carry all the books and notebooks."

Parents are all for it. "I wish every school strictly implemented the restrictions in the size and weight of the school bags," opines R. Varshini, parent of a nine-year-old.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail