Centre to direct states government to formulate 'Children Schoolbag Policy'
Hyderabad: Justice N. Kirubakaran from Tamil Nadu High Court referred to the Government Orders (GOs) issued by governments of TS and Maharashtra and asked the Centre to direct the state governments and the governments of Union Territories to formulate a Children Schoolbag Policy, reducing the weight of the satchels on line with the guidelines issued by both the states.
The order by the TS government which stated that the weights of schools bags should be reduced and that there should be no homework for primary school students and all work pertaining to exercises given at the end of each unit or lesson in textbooks should be done during school hours, under the supervision of teachers, impressed Justice N. Kirubakaran from the Tamil Nadu High Court. He directed all the states to follow the G.O. issued by the TS government.
Justice N. Kirubakaran also directed the Centre to ask the state governments to reduce the weight of satchels of school children and do away with homework for Classes I and II.
However, parents said that though other states are impressed with the G.O. issued by the Telangana government, it is only on papers so far.
N. Narayana, Telangana Parents’ Association president said: “GO 22 which was meant to regulate the school bag load remains on paper only. No private schools care about the government order. Until and unless a specific mechanism exists, this cannot be realised. The officials of the Education Department are unable to implement this. Private schools make use of three times more books than prescribed in the GO. A third party agency is required to implement and monitor all these things’’.
Pavan Reddy, a parent from Manikonda area said: “The average school bag weight of my kid who is in Class IV is about 4-5 kg. She has to carry the bag. In addition to this, the lunch bag and water bottle till the third floor of her school. In the long run, it will definitely impact her health. For other kids too, for once or twice in a day, when there is sports session, they have to carry their sports kits as well in addition to all this. Imagine the total weight in the case of a student who opts for cricket’’.
“We are aware that Telangana Government has bought in GO MS 22 in 2017 which prescribed the maximum weight of the school bags for different grades. But again, as usual, issuing GOs will not help unless there is some monitoring in its implementation which doesn’t happen at all in our state. Really hope and wish that the government has an eye towards implementing the rules/GOs that it framed,” he said.
