Reducing weight of bags: Schools say recommendations cannot be implemented overnight

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Meera Issacs, principal of Cathedral and John Connon School, Malabar Hills, said that while the suggestion of implementing a locker system is useful, it is only possible in the newly-constructed schools that have a space to expand. “Ours is an old school building. Where will we put the lockers? There is no space to expand and the architecture of the old building has to be taken into account,” she said.

Isaacs claimed that reducing bag weight is possible only till Class VII. “In higher classes, with extra subjects like football, physical education and karate, the bag weight increases as children have to keep spare clothes as well,” she said.

The school is now mulling over the idea of introducing tablets. However, it is a long procedure, Issacs admits.

Several schools, on the other hand, have said that they are already taking steps to ensure that the children do not have to carry heavy school bags to school.
B D Somani International School in Cuffe Parade already has a locker system for its students, and is also shifting towards e-learning to reduce dependency on notebooks.

Meera Korde, principal of Saraswati Vidyalaya, Rabodi (Thane), said that students have already been asked to bring only language books to school. “History, science and geography are subjects taught in school in detail. The students have been advised to go home and read from books and not bring texts to school,” she said.

Schools are now awaiting the state government’s circular to get more clarity on the committee’s report.

The High Court bench of justices VM Kanade and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi also said that a monitoring official should be appointed by each school for ensuring implementation of the circular. “We have not been notified anything yet. We are now waiting for the circular to come and then requisite steps will be taken,” said Korde.

Schools have also blamed students for making school bags heavier.

At Rajhans Vidyalaya, Andheri, principal Deepshikha Srivastava, said, “The weight of bags is more than books. Children like to use fancy bags, which increases the weight tremendously.” The school has issued numerous circulars asking parents to monitor their child’s bag’s weight.

At Panvel’s St Joseph’s High School, principal Kalpana Dwivedi said that a string of measures have been undertaken. “For classes I and II, we have fixed three subjects per day. For higher classes, we have divided language over the week so that one day students bring poem books, and grammar books the next day,” Dwivedi said. She, however, also said that parents need to participate equally. “Parents give water bottle, tiffin, short break tiffin and large bags. Even they should help in reducing the weight,” the principal said, adding that putting investment into lockers is not possible due to space constraints. The school is now looking forward to engage in a dialogue with the state government to discuss the non-feasibility of introducing locker system and immediate conversion into e-learning.

There are 4,000 students in the school for which separate e-learning module, specially individual tablets, will have to be arranged.
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