Vinod Tawde claims regular bag check, kin says no

Mumbai: The state education minister Vinod Tawde claimed that 95 per cent of the state board schools have a routine check of the schoolbags by the education department regularly. According to him, it’s the central and international board schools that don’t let the education inspectors interfere in their curriculum. However, parents have refused that the burden of the school bags have been reduced as per the claim.

The government resolution passed in the year 2015 says that the weight of schoolbags should be 1/10th of the weight of the student. This means, if a student weighs 40kg, the weight of the school bag should not be more than 4 kg. Another GR said, the officials at the education department should conduct surprise checks at each school to see whether they are following the GR/rules.

 “If you check the data, we have conducted a proper inspection through our officers at all the state board schools. However, the other board schools don’t entertain our officers,” Mr. Tawde said.

Apart from the state board schools, Mumbai has boards like Indian Certificate Secondary Education (ICSE), Inter-national Baccalaureate (IB), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), etc. “These ICSE, IB and CBSE schools don’t let us interfere in their curriculum. Hence, we will be asking Mr. Prakash Javadekar, HRD Minister to look into the matters as these schools come under MHRD,” Mr. Tawde said.

On the other side, the parents in the city say that no such kinds of checks are being conducted in the schools.

“Earlier for some time the students were told to bring one common note book instead of a note book for each subject for the day. However, now it has come to the same story where my son takes the entire book as no clear instruction is given to him by his teacher,” said Rajan Pillai, a parent. Some parents pointed out that their children have to extra notebooks like daily diary, projects that add up the burden on them.