Offering an innovative solution to the problem of students having to carry heavy school bags, a pilot project was launched here on Wednesday for reducing the number of textbooks by two-thirds in government schools in accordance with the subject trimester. Rajasthan is the first State to take such an initiative.
Inaugurating the project at a senior secondary school in Vatika, Minister of State for Education Govind Singh Dotasara said the students would be required to carry one book instead of several ones on the same subject. One school each in the State’s 33 districts has been selected for the exercise to reduce children's burden on an experimental basis.
Mr. Dotasara said the weight of old books for students of Class One was 900 grams, which would be reduced to 400 grams, while the weight of books for classes till five would be reduced from 5.9 kg to 2.2 kg. The Minister also distributed new books to the school children.
The project, if found successful, will be implemented in the entire State for Classes 1 to 12 in partnership with Piramal Foundation. Mr. Dotasara also asked private schools to adopt the initiative.
Rajasthan Council of School Education's Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Borad said the school curriculum would be re-crafted on the pattern of trimester in order to divide the books accordingly, keeping in view the component of weight of the bag. “For instance, a student of Class 5 will carry one book with four subjects, instead of four books,” he said.
Textbooks team
The Education Department had recently set up a team which worked on crafting the textbooks for Classes 1 to 5, while ensuring that the books became more joyful and were able to engage the students more effectively. With the team’s exercise, the State government has succeeded in reducing the weight of books by two-thirds.