State Council Education Research Training plans to reduce weight of school bags from this year

Hyderabad: Weight of students’ school bags is likely to be examined after the beginning of the new academic year.
Telangana State Council for Education and Research Training (TS SCERT) recently decided to write to the School Education Department to take action on schools prescribing additional books which are against ‘bag weight’ norms.

The Yashpal Educational Committee in 1993 recommended standard bag weight which include the weight of child’s lunch box, water bottle and other items, which children carry to school on a regular basis.

As per the guidelines, for one to two standards, the bag weight should not exceed two kg, for 3 to 4 standards not more than three kg, for 5 to 8 standards not more than four kg and for 9 to 12 (intermediate) standards the weight is set at six kg.

The SCERT experts said the private schools were prescribing workbooks, supplementary books, guides and additional notebooks to the students, which are increasing the bag weights.

Sources in the SCERT said they had found that the child school bag weight was increasing every year and added that action would be taken on schools which were not following the weight norms.

“SCERT very soon will give instructions to the School Education Department officials to inspect and take action on such schools,” he said. The official further said they had asked schools to adopt only SCERT textbooks in case of State board and NCERT for Centre-board schools.

By:G Bharat Krishna