Weight of school bags should not exceed 5 kg, Telangana Govt. orders

Hyderabad: In an attempt to provide relief to school students, Govt. of Telangana directed the managements of the schools to ensure that the weight of bags of class X students should not exceed 5 kg.

As per Government Order (GO) which is released today, Department of School Education (DSE) has issued guidelines to reduce the weight of the school bag in primary, upper primary and high schools.

According to TOI, “The heavy load is caused by the fact that the children bring textbooks, guides, homework notebooks, rough work notebooks etc., to the classroom every day. Therefore, clear guidelines of what to bring to the schools are required. A survey on the school bag load was taken up in some of the districts and based on the survey, an exercise has been taken up to arrive at the proper load of the school bags and a policy on home work and assignments,” the government order read.

GO which said, “While the load of a school bag, as estimated in some of the districts, weighs about 6 to 12 kgs at primary level and 12 to 17 kgs at high school level, it has a severe, adverse physical effect on the growing children which can cause damage to their vertebral column, knees and can also causes anxiety disorders in students”, specified the maximum weight a student has to carry based on class studying.  For I and II classes, the weight of bag should not exceed 1.5 kg, for III to V class, it should be between 2 and 3 kg whereas, for VI and VII classes, the maximum weight allowed is 4 kg, for VIII and IX classes, it should not cross 4.50 kg and for Class X, the weight of bag should be less than or equal to 5 kg.

Management of the school also needed to inform the students in advance about the books they should carry to the school.  To reduce the weight of the bag further, DSE instructed school management to provide safe drinking water which will remove the need to carry a water bottle to school.