New Delhi: The Delhi government has ordered the schools to implement the new school bag policy that was declared in December last year to reduce students’ physical burden.
The Directorate of Education (DoE) in a letter to school principals talked about the severe health issues that occur among growing students due to heavy school bags.
The DoE made several recommendations, which included no textbooks for pre-primary classes, single notebooks for classes I and II, the frequent vigil of school bag weight, encouraging the use of bags with two straps, and informing about the appropriate kinds of school bags.
“Heavy school bags are a serious threat to the health and well-being of school students. These have adverse physical effects on the growing children which can cause damage to their vertebral column and knees.
“Moreover, in the schools which are functioning in double or multi storey buildings, children have to climb the stairs with heavy school bags which further aggravates the problem,” the letter was quoted by India Today.
However, the Delhi government order is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP 2020). The NEP 2020 stated that the weight of a school bag shouldn’t be more than 10 per cent of the bodyweight of a student.
The Ministry of Education shared a policy document in December which stated that India would now need to regularly monitor the school bag weight of students using digital weighing machines on the school premises.
The policy had also said that while selecting textbooks, the weight and the paper quality should also be considered.
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