No school bags day for young students: Understanding the core point
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 09 2019 -

Make learning more fun. Ease the physical burden on the young tots while going to school and address some of the basic requirements needed not to overburden the young students.

These needs are central to the decision of the State Government to declare all working Saturdays as no school bag day for students from Class I to VII studying in Government, Government aided and private schools in the State.

A decision which must have gone down well with the parents and guardians of the young tots as well as the young students.

One hopes that the no school bag day is taken forward and the State Government works out ways to limit the weight of school bags that the young tots are forced to carry on their back everyday they attend school.

It was with a reason why the Central Government issued a directive limiting the weight of school bags that young students carry to class everyday.

On top of this there is also the directive from the Central Government that students in Class I and II should not be given any homework.

All initiatives taken up to ease burden on the young students and make learning an exciting experience. It

is however not clear whether the State Government has implemented this no homework directive of the Centre or not, for what one sees is even students of Class I and II going for private tuitions here.

The no bag initiative of the State Government is acknowledged but it is not yet clear whether this directive will also apply to schools that come under the Central Board of Secondary Education or not and remember there are a number of schools which follow the CBSE pattern and come under it.

Moreover there is also a school which comes under the Council of Indian School Certificate Examinations here.

These schools must be following the guidelines and directives of the board they come under and it would be interesting to see how the State Government goes towards addressing this question.

The Government has done its bit and making learning fun and not a burden is central to the no bags decision.

The important thing now is to see how parents respond to the new development.

As stated earlier, the no bags decision must have gone down with the parents and guardians as well, but the more important question is whether they are ready to accept the core meaning behind such a stand.

The pressure that the young tots are subjected to as they progress in their academic pursuit is immense and most of the pressure come from the expectations of the parents and guardians.

Nothing wrong in this, as such, for every parent would definitely want their children to be top performers but this is where parents and guardians need to come to the idea that children need not be scaled only on the basis of the marks they score in every examination.

As mentioned many times in this column, a student who scores 70 percent need not be seen to be less than one who has scored 75 pc or even 80 pc in the Class X and Class XII examinations.

Certainly there are other parameters that may be taken into consideration to study the progress of a child and not just marks.

The no bag day is indeed welcome but let the Government also expand its views and study how much weight a student is required to carry every day to school via their school bags.

Parents too should not forget the core meaning of the no school bag day.