Telangana Government Puts a Limit on Weight of School Bags

Telangana School Education Department on Tuesday issued strict guidelines to reduce the weight of school bags for children in the State. The act was proposed and submitted by commissioner and Director of School Education, Telangana. Schools including aided and un-aided private schools have to follow guidelines, according to the GO. Terming the weight of the school bags as a serious threat to the health and well being of the students in primary, upper primary and high schools, the guidelines limit the number of books and notebooks students bring to the classroom. It shifts the onus on school officials to supervise the implementation of the steps .

The Telangana Education Department has passed a new government order which caps the weight of school bags for students in primary schools. According to the order, no student up to class five should be carrying bags weighing more than five kilos.

This new order has been welcomed by faculties from the teaching sector.

Manjulatha Narra, the principal of a government school said, "It's a very good decision and all schools should implement it. Private schools give lot of work, so they should implement this. In our schools, we have digital classrooms where they are learning easily," hinting at digital classrooms will replace heavy school bags.

Naina, a primary school teacher, said, "As a teacher, I'm in for this motion as this will help students health wise. We have tiny kids in the class and the bags weigh more than then at times."

Telangana has 42,632 private and government schools.