The High Court of Karnataka on Friday ordered issue of notice to the State government on a PIL petition seeking effective implementation of the policy on School Bag-2020 notified by the Union government suggesting various ways and means for reducing the weight of school bags for students from Classes I to XII.
A Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty passed the order on the petition filed by Ramesh Naik L. of Tumakuru.
Loaded with books
The petitioner has said that he has been seeing students carrying bags loaded with books everyday both in Tumakuru and Bengaluru as he commutes between the two cities as he is a practising advocate in the High Court.
It has been pointed out in the petition that students are carrying overloaded bags to the schools in Karnataka even though the School Bag Policy-2020, prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training, was notified way back in August, 2020, by the Department of School Education and Literacy of the Ministry of Education.
The policy was prepared after the Madras High Court in 2018 had directed the Centre to frame a policy to reduce the weight of the school bags, and it contains various recommendations to reduce the weight and guidelines to implement it, the petitioner said, while pointing out that his representations to the government and Registered Unaided Private Schools Management Association, Karnataka, to implement the policy did not yield any response.
Stipulated weight
The weight of the school bags, as per the policy, should be 1.6 to 2.2 kg for students of Classes I and II, 1.7 to 2.5 kg for Classes III, IV and V, 2 to 3 kg for Classes VI and VII, 2.5 to 4 kg for Class VIII, 2.5 to 4.5 kg for Classes IX and X and 3.5 to 5 kg for Classes XI and XII.
