Children in Telangana will no longer have to trudge to school under a load of heavy school bags as the Telangana government has issued a directive to lay down stringent guidelines to considerably lighten the school bag load of kids in primary, upper primary and high schools under the state board.

It will be hard to believe that the school bag of an average Class X student currently weighs about 17 kg. With the new weight norms, the bag will weigh not more than 5kg.

The GO issued by the department of school education on Tuesday, directs  that the school bag, including textbooks, notebooks should not exceed 1.5 kg for class I and II students, must be less than 3 kg for classes III to V, less than 4 kg for VI and VII classes, not more than 4.5kg for students of classes VIII and IX and a maximum of 5kg for Class X students.

It was stated in the GO that the children carry textbooks, guides, homework notebooks, rough work notebooks etc., to the classroom every day which is the reason for the heavy weight of the bags. It mentions that a survey should be conducted to arrive at the proper load of school bags and a policy of homework and assignments should be there so that students carry only the required and limited number of books.

In some districts, the weight of the bags was found to be about 6 to 12 kg at the primary level and 12 to 17 kg at the high school level. The Order stated that such excess weight leads to severe, the adverse physical effect on growing children. It can damage their vertebral column, knees and can also cause anxiety disorders.

Water bottles also contribute to the weight of the school bags and therefore, the GO has urged schools to provide safe drinking water in order to unburden the students of their heavy bags.