Nagpur: Social organizations RTE Action Committee and Edufirst on Wednesday hit the streets to to protest against schools for heavy schoolbags. The organization’s founder Shahid Sharif said schools are being insensitive towards the health of children by continuing to pile up books in their reference list.
Sharif along with his team weighted schoolbags of students from various schools and found that all of them were breaching the prescribed limits. “Such action on the part of schools is in contravention of section 75 of Juvenile Justice Act and is a punishable offence,” said Sharif.
He demanded that school administration should ensure that the statutory limits on the weight of school bags imposed by the centre should be implemented. Sharif said, “Certain limits are prescribed on the weight of bags which students are supposed to carry. Students of std 1-2 have limit of 1.5 kg, 3-5 up to 4 kg, 8-9 up to 4-5 kg and 10th up to 5 kg.” Health practitioners say that weight of schoolbags must never breach 10% of the child’s body weight.
“This heavy weights leads to physical as well as mental pressure on students. We have seen how the spinal cord gets affected during these growing years if children are made to lug around heavy bags. The extra books prescribed by schools simply mean more mental pressure for kids to learn,” said Sharif.
Along with Sharif, members of the working committee Dharmendra Dubey, Vilash Tijare, Mohammad Fayayaz, Sachin Mahakalkar, Rakesh Patil and Sandeep Lokhande were present at the protest.
