More load, more rote, say schools

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While the school education department has introduced the trimester pattern to bring down the weight of students’ bags, schools have increased the load by dumping more notebooks on the kids.

The school education department has sent a circular to all schools warning them not to force students to buy extra notebooks and thereby make their bags heavier.

During a surprise inspection at private schools, department officials were shocked to see students carrying more than 10 notebooks every day. “Even though a student needs only five notebooks a day, teachers make them carry all 10 for no reason. We asked the students why they carried all the notebooks every day and they blamed the teachers,” said a joint director of the department who inspected several matriculation schools.

The official said that on an average, a student weighed 30 kg while his bag weighed 10. “We were able to bring down the bag load from 10 kg to 3.5 kg when we removed unnecessary notebooks. From this it is clear that schools are increasing the bag load to get money from students,” he said.

“I carry all my notebooks to school as my class teacher checks whether we bring all note books, including rough note. Sometimes when the English teacher is on leave, the Sanskrit teacher replaces her for the session. Anticipating all this we are made to carry all note books and text books,” said V. Sneha, a Class VI student.

A senior official in the ministry of School Education said that the department had strengthened its inspection mechanism to check students’ bag loads.

“The chief minister’s intention is to reduce the bag load of children. With this aim we introduced the trimester pattern of text books so that kids take only one text book.

We have ordered the director of matriculation schools to increase inspections, besides allotting one joint director per district to check whether schools implement the government’s order. Schools will be taken to task if they do not follow the orders,” the official added.