Retired teacher suggests measures to reduce ‘bag burden’ of school kids

* Rajendra Dani, who retired as Associate Professor, conducts a study on ‘school bag burden’ and recommends measures like correct carrying of bag, division of syllabus, use of note-books with lesser number of pages etc
* Sends study findings and recommendations to Union Human Resources Minister Smriti Irani
By Kartik Lokhande 
Seeing a kid climbing the stairs of school building or an appartment wearily with heavy burden of school bag on his/her back, is a disturbing sight. A retired Associate Professor, who resides in Nagpur, also got disturbed with this. He studied the issue carefully and has come up some with solutions to reduce the burden of school bags. 

Rajendra Dani, who served as Associate Professor at Guru Nanak College of Science in Ballarpur in Chandrapur district, has compiled a study report on the issue of heavy load of school bag and has suggested ‘practicable solutions’ to lighten the load of the school bag. He has sent a letter to Smriti Irani, Union Human Resources Minister, requesting her to take cognisance of the same.
According to Dani, the serious consequences of carrying heavy school bag need to be understood properly. Carrying heavy school bag can lead to premature ageing of spine and can even cause permanent damage to spinal cord in some cases. Children’s backbone is not strong enough to carry such heavy load daily, climbing two-three floors to reach classrooms in multi-storeyed schools, and also climbing two-three floors if their family is staying in flat schemes.
Even after directives from Ministry of Human Resources and Childrens School Bag Act of 2006, not much improvement has taken place in this regard. Children are carrying school bags much heavier than the prescribed upper limit of 10 per cent of their body weight. According to medical experts, Dani said, a considerable number of school children carrying heavy school bags are falling victims to medical conditions such as back pain, deformed skeletons, and even lung problems. If school bag is more than 15 per cent of their body weight, it can change the angle of shoulder, neck, trunk, and lower limb and can cause permanent changes in overall posture of a child and they may develop the habit of slouching. Fatigue, forward bending of back making the process of breathing harder, tingling-numbness and weakness in the hands, Scoliosis (spine bent sideways), psychological disorder including loss of confidence and efficiency and depression, are other ill-effects of heavy school bag, he added. 

Dani’s study covers various aspects including ill-effects of heavy load on physical health of children, types of school bag and correct way to carry it, average loadd that children carries every day to school, provisions of Childrens School Bag Act, 2006.
Children usually carry shoulder bag and back-packs. According to Dani, back-packs are preferable to shoulder bags as the load is balanced across the back. Still, heavy back-pack also can cause problems. He has suggested that while using a back-pack also, children should use not only shoulder straps but also the waist belt. The most correct way to carry a back-pack is to shorten the shoulder straps so that the load is positioned ideally between the shoulder and the middle of the back. “If the load is hung down the back, it is harder to carry. Besides, one-strap bags put the entire weight of bag on one shoulder and can give rise to Scoliosis (sideways deviation of the spine) because of asymmetric weight distribution and cause long-lasting backaches and damage to spine,” he stated in his study.

The Problem
As part of his study, Dani weighed school bags for three classes -- Standard III, VII, and VIII for CBSE pattern schools although he said that the situation was the same even in case of State Board school students. For Std III, the total weight carried by a child is 7 kgs as against NCERT guidelines of 3 kgs. The 7 kgs of load includes weight of seven books -- 2.2 kgs; notebooks, compass box, School Diary -- 2.2 kgs; weight of empty school bag -- 900 gms; weight of empty lunch bag -- 300 gms; weight of tiffin box and water bottle (1 litre) -- 1.4 kg. Similarly, the weight carried by a child studying in Class VII was found to be 8.3 kgs as against 4 kgs prescribed in guidelines, and 8.4 kg in case of Class VIII students as against 4 kgs under prescribed guidelines.

The Solutions
After studying the issue deeply, Rajendra Dani has suggested some solutions, and has asked parents and teachers to get equally involved in implementing those. Here are the solutions:
* Parents and teachers should take care that a child carries only the books and note-books of subjects as per the time-table, and not all the prescribed books every day.
* The entire syllabus for every subject should be divided into four parts corresponding to four Formative Assessments in case of CBSE pattern schools, and unit test or term examinations in case of State Board schools. If there are 16 lessons for a given subject, the first four lessons will be syllabus for Formative Assessment-I, and likewise. This will reduce book-load by 75 per cent as students will have to carry only one-fourth of the load of books.
* All text-books up to Std X be published in loose spiral-binding instead of permanent adhesive gum binding, as it will facilitate removal of required number of lessons from the books.
* Most of the children carry 200 pages notebook for each subject. Each such note-book weighs 200 gms. Thus, if a child carries eight note-books, he carries a weight of 2 kgs. Instead of 200 pages, if note-books of 100 pages each are used, the load of note-books will be reduced by 50 per cent.
* A light-weight school bag or back-pack weighing up to 500 gms will reduce the load further by 400 gms.
* Marks should be introduced for book handling and book care, and parents and teachers should inculcate book-care as a value among children.
* Text-books should have lesser number of pages without compromising on the content.

What does the Childrens
School Bag Act, 2006 say? * A school bag should not weigh more than 10 per cent of a child’s body weight
* No school bag should be carried by Nursery and Kindergarten students
* Schools should issue guidelines on school bags
* Schools violating the provisions liable to face a penalty of up to Rs 3 lakh
* State Governments should provide appropriate lockers at schools