Non-implementation of any Law or Act passed is against the very spirit of law. Viewing the concern and noting the public demand, the government of J & K passed the J& K Children’s School Bag Act 2006 whereunder the weight of the school bag with books was prescribed to be limited to 10 percent of the over all body weight of a kid. The kids were/are seen with heavy weight bags bending their backs ever ready to tumble any side while walking to & fro to respective schools/homes or boarding/de-boarding the carriages private or school arranged. Fatigued physically they remain stressed and busy in completing too much assigned home work to have any respite to relax. Parents too get involved as aids so that wards do not suffer results of incomplete or ill-done homework. Time shortens for them to know what they write except rote impeding the development of creative skills necessary for new and wider realms of education and learning to face the challenges in the competitive world.
No prescribed regulations exist for course combination suitable to these lily white innocents to allow them bloom with age cycles to obviate stress at least upto 8 years of age. During 2017 a committee headed by the then Chairperson Board of School Education ith three members assigned with the task of suggesting measures to reduce the weight of school bags had submitted its report in 10/2017. The suggestions, inter alia, include single book containing chapters/questions on Math, English, Urdu and Science with a combined workbook for class 1st and 2nd with total weight of bag to be 1.5 kg preferably a waterproof. For classes 3rd to 5th it was recommended that session be divided in four quarters with semester system. Nonetheless none of the suggestions/recommendations seemed to have been either accepted or implemented nor committee asked to review and improve upon the job as the state of affairs continues as it was. Now government is mulling to emulate and adopt Delhi schools pattern for which team of officers including Directors of SSA and RMSA are likely to visit the government-run schools in New Delhi. Studying practice & pattern is not forbidden/no harm to benefit from the tricks of the game save the geographical and weather conditions of the turf to be played upon are the same. However, New Delhi, which is said, does not sleep, model is hardly to fit our circumstances of long, formidable and inevitable winter vacations in addition to short spell of summer vacations, November session, transport & communication shortcomings and other hurdles.
Apt to recapitulate that bombarding the kids with number of books does not in any way make them scholars, scientists and intellectuals overnight to sprout the knowledge from as no container can hold more than its capacity. Moreover, the kids should have time and congenial atmosphere to freely interact with his/her teacher. Invoking circuitous route for too near and small matter to be laid hands on easily & quickly and involving outside consultancy is conversely deemed to be tantamount to belittling the J&K’s educational talent and treasure making questionable our research and doctoral works. This discounts the stature of a state that does not sort out even the 5th class issue. The matter appears to have blown out of proportion. If we lean on others for help in such matters how shall students take us as teachers what to talk of masters. This is going to be a third exercise in a period of 11 years by 2018 indicative of casual approach and non-seriousness of the authorities concerned who shelved the implementation of the Act of 2006 for more than a decade upto 2017 after the suggestions offered by the four member constituted committee were followed in non-implementation only with skip over to the likelihood of formation of another team of officers for the same purpose.
Notwithstanding obtaining leads from outside the state, a committee of local relevant experts comprising of educationists, academicians and psychologists can better guide for evolving a solution . One way of dealing with this issue of bag weights can be to apportion the books over six days of the week with duration of periods extended so that kids may learn & write the lesson at school. 1st and 2nd class kids may be asked to get one or two, as may be decided, of the three books with their respective note books and a combined rough book. Similarly class 3rd to 5th having four or more subjects can be asked to bring any two or three of the four- five subjects on two day interval of the six days’ week. Another way of lessening the weight of the school bags may be to curtail the syllabus contents suitably to meet the primary and the elementary requirements. Coat is to be cut according to the body. This will enable them to understand by reason and logic what they are being taught. This will invigorate and energise them to try to know and learn more things having mastered little by little the previously taught ones who otherwise are tense not with learning but finishing the tasks. No spoon-feeding of education can work sprouting of this from within may. The model and modus-operandi for implementation must be enforced in private schools also for the kids there in most of the schools, are grossly overloaded with the number of subjects, books, note books etc, more to meet the needs of the wild capitalism through the sale and purchase of extra books and other teaching/learning material than imparting knowledge and education requisite for innovative human resources development. If the petty issue of reducing bag weights is any indicator deciding about the holding of exams in November or March, another issue confronting the Ministry of Education, may take the shape of ‘move’ with respective governments and times to come unsolvable even before the world body.
[The author is a former Sr. Audit Officer working as Consultant in the A.G’s Office Srinagar.]