KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
The Jammu and Kashmir high court has directed the J&K government to take a decision on a policy that can ensure that children do not have to carry heavy bags to school daily.
Responding to a Public Interest litigation filed by a 20-year-old undergraduate student of Amar Singh College, Badrul Duja Khanyari, seeking directions to the government to come up with a policy decision which would ease the burden of heavy bags of schoolchildren, a division bench of Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur while directing the commissioner secretary education to consider Khanyari’s representation within three months, said, “The appropriate decision in the matter has to be taken by the government alone.”
In Mumbai, a government-appointed panel in July last year had revealed that children carry school bags that are too heavy for them and over 58 percent of students below 10 years are suffering from orthopaedic ailments.
It had suggested use of e-classroom, audio- visual technology, and other technological means for teaching.
Khanyari has suggested that the government provide locker facilities to all students so that they could keep textbooks at school.
He also suggested the government to ensure portable drinking water in all schools so that children do not have to carry a water bottle along.
