(This is my first blog and I have much to learn about blogging starting from nothing!)
There have been many discussions on this topic over the past few years, but, nothing seriously done!
If you want to see how serious the problem is, please ask all the kids around you and check how many have persisting and recurring backaches. I intend to expand this blog and post photos of children struggling under their backpacks.
I have a few thoughts on reducing this burden on our kids. The number and sizes of books have both to be considered.
Number of Books:- Most teachers insist on the home work given by them should be submitted in a separate book. They collect the books from the students for checking and valuation. One good quality loose sheet folder can be used by the students to carry the home assignments to and fro. These loose sheets can be submitted to the concerned teachers and collected back later and filed in normal quality folders kept at home. high quality alphabetical or numerical Index files can be provided to teaches for ease of retrieval.
Size of books:- With the per page cost of most types of books being nearly the same independent of the number of pages contained, there is no need to specify the requirement for the books with enough pages to cover the needs of the whole year. No book should have more than 40 pages. Children above, say, 10 years old, can be taught to use loose sheets and instructed to carry just the required sheets which concern the topic needed for the day's class.
It is common to see that note books at the end of the year contain many unused pages In the olden days, these pages were removed from the books after the year and used for rough work. This practice seems to have died. It is an eminently avoidable national and universal waste. I hope we will some day notebooks disappear to be replaced by loose sheets! Wastage in binding each note book is also reduced.
