No homework for students of class 1 and 2, fix weight of school bags: HRD Ministry to states

In a bid to ease the burden on young children who are forced to carry heavy school bags, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry has issued instructions to all the states and union territories (UTs) to fix the weight of school bags according to the student’s class. In a letter written to all the states and UTs, the ministry also instructed schools not to give any homework to students of class I and class II. The education ministry also asked to formulate guidelines to regulate the teaching of subjects in schools.

As per the government guidelines, the weight of school bags can’t be more than 5 kg for any class student. For class and I and II students, the school bag weight should be below 1.5 kg, 3 kg for classes III to V, 4 kg for classes VI and VII.

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To regulate the weight of school bags, the HRD ministry guidelines also say that schools should not be allowed to prescribe the students any other books than NCERT syllabus textbooks.

“The ministry guidelines are in adherence to the Madras High Court order on the weight of school bags. Earlier schools would prescribe several books to students and it would increase the weight of the bag. With the new guideline, schools have been asked to stick to only NCERT textbooks that are prescribed in the syllabus,” an NCERT official was quoted as saying by The Print.

The ministry’s guidelines came after the Madras High Court observation earlier this year. The court had said that the children are not “weightlifters” and their school bags should not be loaded like containers.

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“The children are neither weightlifters nor schoolbags are loaded containers. Joy, happiness, enthusiasm, trolling, rolling, kicking, running, fighting, playing with other children are natural qualities of the children,” the High Court had said.