The problem of the heavy schoolbag
JOHN L. PAUL
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Crushed under the weight of schoolbags?
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Burdensome education: Despite recommendations the weight of schoolbags is yet to be reduced.
Most children are forced to carry heavy bags to school, despite interventions by the Kerala High Court and the State Human Rights Commission.
This, despite findings in studies conducted by medical professionals that children who regularly carry bags packed with big text and note books develop spinal and postural deformities. Back in 2004, a writ petition was filed before the High Court by P
rof V J
Antony, former vice principal of the Cochin College and K K Harris Pai, lecturer of the college, highlights the woes of children in the pre-primary classes. Their main grouse was against burdening children with formal education in pre-primary classes and the huge bags that children are forced to carry at that tender age.
Strict measures
Based on studies conducted by the Indian Academy of Paediatrics, the petitioners submitted that the weight of any student’s school bag should not exceed 1/10th of the child’s weight. Otherwise, it would cause severe health problems to the children.
“A LKG child carrying a four-kilogramme bag is equivalent to an adult carrying a cement bag,” says Dr Sachitananda Kamath, national secretary of the child disability group of the IAP. “While a pre-primary school child carries a weight of around four kilograms in the schoolbag, a college student carries only a kilogram. Study materials in the pre-primary school level should be provided in the school itself and home work must be a strict no-no.”
Following the orders passed by the High Court in 2004, the State Human Rights Commission recommended that the Education Department take steps to reduce the weight of school bags.
This could be done by splitting up textbooks term-wise and by using 80 and 100-page note books. The recommendation was made following petitions filed before it by A K Menon of Palakkad and Mukesh Jain of Mattanchery.
The petitioners had submitted that a child of Class IV, with an average weight of 28 kg, was forced to carry a school bag weighing about seven to eight kg. This would irreparably harm his spine.
The panel (whose report was referred to by the Commission) was headed by Abraham K. Paul, paediatrician and national chairman of the child disability group of the IAP, apart from Dr Kamath. They studied the reports by Deepak Sharan, a paediatric orthopaedician in Bangalore, who has been conducting surveys on the injuries caused to children by the load of heavy school bags.
“The panel opined that children should not be asked to carry textbooks and the weight of their bags, including any notebook and water bottle, should be less than a kg,” says Dr Paul.
Certain solutions
For Classes I to VII, they recommended that the textbooks be split up term-wise, reducing their weight by 2/3rd.
The portions of each subject for a term could be combined so that a child need carry only one textbook for the entire term. For high-school students, the textbooks could be split up term-wise and A4 size papers used instead of note books. The papers should then be filed, back at home. The panel also recommended that purified drinking water be provided within the school campus, so that carrying water bottles could be done away with.
Mukesh Jain, the petitioner, had been campaigning for lightening the load of school children for many years. He said that he carried out a survey among students on the postural problems they faced. “Regular use of heavy school bags affects the posture of children, since it is the growing period of their bones.”
The Rights Commission had ordered that the Education Department implement the panel recommendations.
The weight of the material of school bags should be reduced to not more than 250 to 300 gm, it had said. Sadly, little has changed despite the numerous studies conducted on children and the orders passed by the High Court and the State Human Rights Commission. The High Court had asked the Government to take action within three months.
Now, it is about three years since the order was passed.
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