Ban on sachels to lighten pre-school kids' load

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

BHAKTAPUR: Pre-school kids now can have loads of fun as they go to learn; they don’t need to carry heavy sachels on their backs. And for Grade I-XII students, a standard weight for bags has been prescribed. The move is sure to earn accolades from school-goers and parents alike.

A committee formed under the Department of Education to determine new standards for institutional schools has proposed that pre-primary children should not carry bags to schools and fixed the maximum weight of bags primary and secondary schoolchildren carry.

Weight of school bags and number of textbooks students carry to school have always been a major concern in view of possibility of schoolchildren acquiring backache as they grow, but no substantial measure had been taken so far.

Experts say schoolchildren are carrying avoidable excessive load in their school bags and suggest that heavy school bags can result in spinal abnormalities, including disfiguring curvatures known as scoliosis.

With today’s proposal, parents also can soon heave a sigh of relief.

Nirmala Koirala, a parent of a kindergarten pupil, says her child has to carry as many as 14 books (and notebooks) to school everyday. “It’s overload for a five-and-a-half-year-old kid, and he cannot carry his bag on his own. I have to carry the bag all the way to school,” says Koirala. “I hope now my kid, and myself, will be relieved of the burden.”

As per the committee’s proposal, the maximum weight of school bags should be 4 kg for Grade I-V, 6 kg for Grade VI-VIII and 8 kg for students above Grade IX. However, the committee, which plans to submit its proposal to the Ministry of Education for approval in a few days, has stopped short of explaining whether its prescribed weight includes water bottle, tiffin box and other stuff students are asked to carry. The committee has also decided to propose the maximum distance students have to cover while reaching the school on buses.