Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS)

Bengaluru, May 6: The state government has taken out an order to reduce the weight of the school bags carried by children. However, the parents and public have different opinions in this regard.

The education department has taken out this circular after conducting a research in this matter in the academic year of 2016-17 in coordination with state education research and training department and center for Child and the Law. Last year, even the central HRD ministry had asked for forming a policy and submitting a report on this subject.

Niranjanaradhya V P, programme of Center for Child and the Law, has welcomed the action of the education department. Ministry of Human Resources of the central government and state government has issued guidelines for the first time to implement this rule.

NIranjanaradhya said, "The government has taken this action after seeing the children carrying heavy bags on their back on their way to school. The medical fraternity also has given international guidelines for the weight of the school bags carried by children. The guidelines are finalized after discussing the same with many experts and using the democratic manner to decide the outcome."

D Shashikumar, chief secretary of Associated Management of Private School in Karnataka (KAMS) differs from the research and says, "The education department does not consider the issues concerning the schools and children when they call for a meeting. There are no scientific methods followed for this research. At least some sort of homework should have been done before bringing this rule into action at once.

"More than 14,000 schools out of the 18,000 schools in the state are budget-based schools and they do not have the capacity to implement the basic infrastructure that is suggested by the government."