A year has passed since the Royal Education Council (REC) officially notified the schools across the country to reduce the weight of school bags. However, only a handful of institutions have heeded the recommendation.
The REC had sent another letter last month, reminding the schools to find strategies to unburden students from heavy school bags. Suggestions include having certain subjects in a day, reducing the number of note books, and introducing home work policy.
Among others are: equipping classrooms with lockers and shelves, encouraging pupils to buy slim exercise books and provide safe drinking water in schools. The REC said carrying heavy weight of school bags discourages students to go to schools.
“Carrying heaving bags to schools is mentally and physically challenging for students. This leads to loss of interest to learn. We have requested school to adopt the measure but so far, we didn’t see any school heeding our request,” said Kinga Dakpa, the Director of REC.
The council said they will consider additional initiatives pertaining to unburdening students by the schools. In the capital, Jigme Losel Primary School is the first school to have adopted measures to lessen the weight of school bags.
“Following the REC’s home work policy, we ask students to do their home works for all subjects in one note book. The home assignments are completed during the 8th period or last period,” said one of the teachers, Tshering Lham. “We have told students to think books.”
Students said with such initiatives, the weight of their school bags has reduced.
“We complete home work in the class. We carry less number of books now for we have shelves in the classroom to keep our books,” said one of the students, Dorji Wangchuk.
“Since I don’t get tired carrying heavy bag to school, I can concentrate better in the class. I was told by our teachers that carrying heaving bags could make us stunted,” added another student, Nima Tenzin Dorji.
The REC hopes all schools will come up with various measures to reduce the weight of school bags within the next few months.
The council said: “If schools fail to do so, we will write to the education ministry for necessary actions.”
Research has shown that students carrying heavy school bags can suffer from neck and back pain, shoulder strain and fatigue among others.
