Centre issues guidelines to regulate weights of school bags

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has instructed all states and union territories to formulate guidelines to rationalise teaching of subjects to regulate the weight of school bags as per the instructions of the Government of India.

Lakshadweep administration has already taken action by directing all schools not to assign any homework to the students of Class I and II. "Schools should not prescribe any other subjects except language and mathematics for class I and II and language, EVS and mathematics for class IV to V students, as prescribed by NCERT," read a circular of the administration's Directorate of Education.

In fact, a recent circular of the Directorate noted that students should not be asked to bring additional books or any other extra material to the school.

The circular instructed that school bags of students of classes I and II should not weigh more than 1.5 kilograms and in case of students of class III and IV, the weight of bag should not exceed 3 kilograms.

They also ordered schools not to exceed the weight of bags beyond 4 kilograms for students of class VI and VII, 4.5 kilograms for class VIII and IX students and 5 kilograms for class X students.