December 9, 2020.
TED NewsDesk, New Delhi: The Education Ministry has come up with new guidelines for schools, such as the provision of personal lockers in schools and digital weighing machines to weigh the school bags, not giving homework to students till class 2, provision of drinking water in the school premises, and not prohibiting school bags with carrier wheels. These changes have been suggested keeping in mind the new National Educational Policy (NEP), which suggests that the school bags should not weigh more than 10 per cent of the students’ body weight from classes 1 till 10.
The new policy also states that “Schoolbag needs to be light-weight with proper compartments, and (should) contain two padded and adjustable straps that can be squarely fit on both the shoulders. Wheeled carriers should not be allowed as it may hurt children while climbing stairs.”
To stop children from carrying lunch boxes, the policy has mandated the schools to provide the students with the mid-day meals. Additionally, the time- tables should be accommodating time for sports, physical training and light reading. It further adds, “For selecting a textbook for children, the criterion of weight should be taken into consideration. The weight of each textbook may be printed on the textbook by the publishers, along with the Grams per Square Meter (GSM).”
Instead of being given homework, the students of 1 and 2 classes should be encouraged to speak and converse in class. Meanwhile, students of 3, 4 and 5 classes should be given a maximum of two hours of homework in a week and students of 6, 7 and 8 should be given homework of almost one hour per day.
The policy also suggests, “At this stage, children develop the habit of sitting little longer with concentration, so they can be given homework such as writing a story, an essay or an article on contemporary issues; writing an article about the problems in the locality; measures for saving electricity and petrol, among other things.”
This will help them create healthy playing and reading habits outside of the classroom and will be less burdensome too. It will also help them become better, more compassionate human beings with a deep sense of understanding of the world around them.
Source: The Indian Express
