School bags far from lighter, shows a survey

DPA president Aparajita Gautam said only one out of 86 students surveyed outside a private school in west Delhi carried a bag with weight under permissible limits.

Nine months after the Directorate of Education (DOE) issued orders on the reduction of weight of school bags in Delhi schools, a survey conducted by Delhi Parents Association(DPA) on Tuesday revealed that the situation on the ground hasn’t changed much.

The association found that the average weight of school bags for students studying in class 1 and 2 section was 5kg. (HT file photo)

DPA president Aparajita Gautam said only one out of 86 students surveyed outside a private school in west Delhi carried a bag with weight under permissible limits. “Bags of students from nursery to class 11 were checked. The bags of all the other children weighed almost three times the permissible limit for their classes,” Gautam said.

The association found that the average weight of school bags for students studying in class 1 and 2 section was 5kg. Even for students studying in nursery and prep classes, the average weight of their school bags was found to be around 4.5kg.

In November last year, the education department had fixed the maximum weight of school bags as per the guidelines mentioned by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

The notice was issued to heads of government, government-aided and unaided recognised schools asking them to follow textbooks prescribed by SCERT, NCERT and CBSE only.The schools were also asked to conduct frequent checks to ensure that the students are not carrying heavy bags.

“Despite the Delhi HC order which said that CBSE-affiliated schools will include NCERT or SCERT books, we found that most of the students had books by private publishers,” Gautam said.

“No matter how much checking is done, students are used to bringing multiple notebooks. They will bring guidebooks as well as textbooks to school,” AK Jha, principal of a government school in Rohini, said.