Tag: School bags

School Without School Bags: The Only Way To Rid Students Of The Weight Of School Bags

We saw that School Bag Policy 2020 is a casual and miserable attempt to help students. The recommendations of School Bag Policy 2020 increase the weight of school bags further. So, how to deal with the issue? The solution is simple – School Without School Bags.

There are a host of recommendations that academicians/learning experts/schools/courts/activists – in short – Adults will come up with to reduce the weight of school bags. Each of these measures is a tried and tested failure. Yet, they keep going around serving no purpose whatsoever.

Let’s go through this list of failures to convince us that there is no other solution than a school without school bags.

The Failed Recommendations

The locker @ schools: If schools do have the bandwidth for additional space and infrastructure, they rather use it for play-grounds and spacious classrooms. Not a feasible concept for the majority of schools.

Replace books with tablets: Another impractical suggestion. Till the time, the students are rid of written exams, the books can’t get replaced.

Bagless Days: Well, the children face the issue of carrying the weight of school bags on all the days and not on just one day of the week. Is the objective to get rid of the burden on one day and then, pile it up on other days?

Students to be given food and water in school: Apart from mid-day meal serving Government schools and high-end private schools that last for the whole day, other schools can’t follow this dictum. Is it practically possible for 500 + students to drink water in 20-30 minutes from 5-10 taps (and they drink water in the last 5-10 minutes of the recess and not the first 10-15 minutes)?

Moreover, it is not lunch boxes and water bottles that make the weight of school bags but notebooks, textbooks, reference books and the lot. This recommendation is barking at the wrong tree.

School bags to be made of lighter material: Arre, why don’t they get it? It is not the school bag that is heavy, what is inside the bag, that is heavy. Another option shooting from the hip.

  • Notebooks will be made of 40 pages, hence it will be lighter.
  • Schools will follow the semester/trimester pattern. Books will be divided into 2/3 parts, hence they will be lighter.
  • Students will be given two sets of textbooks, one for home and one for school.
  • Schools can have block/double periods of the same subject. Hence, students need to carry lesser books.

And who will keep track of these multiple sets of books? The poor child has more than enough to lift, now he/she will have more than enough to keep count/tally of. She/he might end up carrying every set of books – home/school/finished/unfinished, increasing the weight further. It is sheer torture to keep studying the same subject for one and a half hour or more. Only the adults can come up with inane suggestions like this. Give the poor child a break.

Please bring up other options, if any and you can see for yourself that they are unworkable too. If you feel otherwise and are convinced about the feasibility of any of the suggestions above to reduce the weight of school bags, please show them in a live application in more than 5 schools.

School Without School Bags

The student spends 5-8 hours in school. After that, the poor fellow has to attend tuitions/coaching classes, now the study apps also get added to the list. Further, consider sports/dance/music/any other classes of the parent’s choice. The child has to have screen time too. Where is the time for him/her to study at home? Then, why not keep the school bag at school only?

Where to keep the school bag in school? There are no locker/shelves? But, why do you need one? There is nothing that happens in the classroom once the students leave. The school bag can very well be left on the student’s desk. What’s the worry about safety? It is a school, after all. Not a place for pick-pockets.

The student has to do homework, so he/she needs to carry books home. But, I suppose the expert group appointed by the Ministry of Education has said that there is no homework up to Class II, a maximum of two hours a week from Classes III-V, middle school (from Classes VI-VIII), a maximum of one hour a day.

For this minimal work, what is the need to carry the entire school bag? Why not keep homework books at home and send the snap-shots to the teacher for checking? This is claimed to be happening during the online learning of the COVID-19 period, why not co-opt changes during the normal period?

The student has to do project work. Well, project work requires a different set of materials and books altogether. Let’s not club it with the regular school bag.

What about tuitions/coaching classes? They give their own study-material. They have no use of what is carried in a school bag.

But, the student has to study for exams. The poor chap is being continuously taught in schools/coaching classes/tuitions/apps. Do you really feel that he/she needs to study further for exams?

Please bring up other doubts, if any and you can see for yourself that they would get resolved too.

The Nostalgia Crap

  • Banning school bags will make children lazier and they will always seek a comfortable life.
  • Without school bags, the school life of children remains incomplete.
  • For school going kids, their bag is their treasure box where they keep all their important things.
  • The school bag is also a measure of teaching children to be responsible for their belongings.

The above points and any other similar ideas are pure and unadulterated nonsense. Anybody raising them shows the uselessness of the Indian education system that they claim to have studied in.

It only means that the adults, who lifted school bags in their childhood, cannot imagine a school without school bags for today’s children. Their attitude is more like, I had to bear the burden, so should you. Can you really expect these childish adults to solve any damn issue, leave aside the weight of school bags?

In short

Did anyone ever consider that Indian students will study from home for one full year and they will be fine? Well, everyone claims to have done exactly that and doing well. Desperate times of COVID-19, desperate measures of online learning, one would say.

Similarly, the weight of school bags is a desperate problem deserving of a creative measure. All the solutions devised till now have not worked. Why not re-phrase the question? Why not question the utility of carrying a school bag from home to school and back to home? It is absolutely not serving any purpose in today’s education system. It can very well be left at school and that should be fine.

To be honest, I don’t see any wrong in the idea of school without school bags. What about you?

PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Stand UP, Speak OUT!!! #IAmAParent.

Weight of school bags is not going to reduce in India

The government of India has passed the order restricting the weight of school bags of the students. The order limits the weight of the school bags of class I and II student to 1.5 kg. The school bag of class III to V student should not exceed 3 kg and the same of class VI-VII students has been restricted to 4 kg, of class VIII–IX student to 4.5 kg and class X student to 5 kg.

On the face of it, the order looks great. The parents, the educationists, the schools, the media – all have welcomed the step taken by the government. Now, the question is – Is the heavy school bag a problem in itself or is it a symptom of a greater order malaise affecting the Indian education system?

After all, the weight of school bags does not increase on its own. The child has no say in what to carry and what not to carry in the school bag. So the child cannot be responsible for the heavy school bags. Who is responsible for the weight of school bags? What goes into increasing the weight of school bags? Without answering or at the least, raising these questions, the government of the day has passed the order restricting the weight of school bags.

I suppose there are three issues plaguing the weight of school bags. All the three are known to everybody. The first is evident to all on a daily basis. The second issue can only be spoken about anonymously. The third is so much interwoven in our lives, that we would not be even aware of it.

The school timings

Majority of the school timings are for 8 hours – 8.30 am to 3.30 pm. Even for the class I and II, rather seemingly for all the classes. Now, when a child has to spend 8 hours in a school, it would be expected that the child has to carry enough material to occupy herself/himself throughout the day. (A full-grown working adult spends 8 hours in the office. A growing child also spends 8 hours in school. Unlike her / his parents, a child also has to participate in extra-curricular activities, project report, homework, prepare for exams – wonder where is the childhood?)

Unless the school timings get curtailed, the weight of school bags will not reduce. One may argue that will the weight of school bags definitely come down with the reduction of school timings? The answer is no due to the other two issues. However, the reduction in school timings is the first step in bringing down the weight of school bags. Else, what will schools do with the children for 8 long hours?

The school fees

This is the elephant in the room that nobody talks about. The school fees per annum in India range from 40-50 k to 1 lac to 2 lacs to 3 lacs to 4 lacs to 5 lacs to 6 lacs to 7 lacs and more. This is without transportation and food. I am not sure about the other incidental expenses.

Now with such exorbitant fees, the schools need to have the 8-hour school shifts. Else, what all will they claim in a 5-hour shift for charging such high fees? With these fees, the schools need to show the parents that their children are learning something very important. Hence the weight of school bags. Even for schools with lesser fees, they need to stand in the market. They also need to show that they are up to something. How do they do it? The weight of school bags.

Again, one may argue that the school fees are important for the schools to invest in infrastructure, teachers etc for a better learning output for the children. Well, if a school fee of 6-7 lacs per year is a pre-requisite for a successful learning environment and results, all other schools can very well be shut down for spoiling the future of other lesser children.

One will not speak about the school fees openly lest his / her child studying in one of those schools face an issue from the school management.

With these two issues of inflated school fees leading to 8-hour school timings, the weight of school bags is not going to come down.

The parental expectations

Narayana schools start their Medichamps programme and eTechno programme for cracking medical entrance and IIT-JEE from standard 6 onwards. The government has restricted weight of school bags for standard 6 students at 4 kg. Now when the child has started studying for something that is 7 years away, what is to be expected of the weight of school bags?

Expectations from a child get so much ingrained in an Indian parental mind that it has to manifest itself somewhere in a tangible form for a parent to be convinced that the child is on the right path. Nothing better than the weight of school bags.

Conclusion

Indian laws and rules suffer from practical execution issues. This government order is no better. Who is going to ensure that the weight of school bags is as per the norms? The schools, the parents, the government – Who?

If the parents/schools are so concerned about the weight of school bags of the children, they can address the issue themselves. The schools would not do, for that affects their profits. The parents would not do, for that affects the perceived future of their children. The government, anyways, would not do anything apart from passing orders (they run anganwadis and government schools with no stellar records, rather no records at all).

For all I know, the weight of school bags might get transferred to a smartphone/tablet someday and everybody, but the child, will claim success.

PS:

i. “As per the curriculum, six textbooks have been prescribed for classes VI to X. Three textbooks for three languages and one for Maths, Science and Social Studies each,” said the circular. “There shall be one notebook for each subject for exercises, projects, Unit Test, experiments etc. which the students need to bring as per timetable. Students should not be asked to bring additional books, extra material to the school.” The above adds up to 5 books, including the textbook, for each subject. With 6 subjects, this becomes 30 books. Even if the child carries 50% of the books, how it will remain within the limit of 4 kgs for a class VI student?

ii. As per education experts, heavy bag brings stress on the child due to which back pain and muscle pain occur. The posture of the child also gets affected by the heavy load of the school bag carried on the back. Apart from the visible physical stress, there is no mention of the mental trauma of a child. He has to study for 8 long hours whatever he carries and, needless to say, the expectations of the parents.