Orissa resident Sanjay Kumar Patnaik has forwarded a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioning about the steps to be taken to reduce the weight of school bags. At present children carry heavy bags to schools which cause heavy strain on their back. Parents have often raised the issue of heavy school bags carried by children and even filed a public interest litigation with Bombay High Court for regulating the weight of bags carried by students.
According to Mr Patnaik, “The weight of school bags can be reduced if the book publisher splits the course into two parts i.e one part could be used by students for studying the syllabus of mid-term exam and another for annual exams.”
Today students carry many items in their bags like books, compass box, tiffin box, crayons, craft materials and water bottles which create huge discomfort to them. Those students who walk to schools by carrying bulky bags are more affected as compared to their counterparts travelling in school buses. Many students often carry two lunch boxes to schools. Some of them forget to unpack their bags after reaching homes as they often carry previous days’ time table books to schools which further increase the burden. Sometimes parents too don’t bother to check their children’s school bags due to their busy work schedule.
“The total number of teaching days varies from 180 to 220 days per year (excluding summer vacation, winter vacation, annual function, sports, puja holidays, half yearly and annual exam days). Each class generally is held for 45 minutes. A teacher takes four to seven days to teach a single lesson (including teaching, question and answer session, correcting note books). Number of lesson varies from 10 to 20 for each subjects excluding general knowledge. Proper lesson planning and scheduled time table will help both teacher and students,” added Patnaik.
For example (No of days classes held per year) X (no of periods per day) = (total no classes of the year) / (total no of lesson in all subjects) = days required to complete each lesson.
180 X 7 = 1260 / 140= 9 days to complete one lesson
“Seven classes per day are enough to complete the courses. Remaining one period could be allotted for cursive writing, drawing, dictation, story, telling activities, games, library etc to help students become smarter,” said Patnaik.
“Government schools must follow English language as a medium of instruction. Most of the government schools charge lower fees as compared to their private counterparts. If we focus on three top subjects i.e., Maths, Science and Geography, in future our resources will meet the world’s requirements,” he added.
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