Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools have started dropping subjects like General Knowledge, Moral Science and increased the duration of physical education classes in order to comply with the recent circular that re-iterated the bag load of the children should be reduced.
The CBSE, earlier this month, had issued a circular stating that affiliated schools must scrupulously follow regulations on reducing the bag load and homework on children. The circular emphasised that schools must not ask students to carry more books than the maximum number of books prescribed for each class.
Apart from cutting down on subjects, some schools have changed subjects like computer science as fully practical modules, increased the use of smart classes and audio-visual lessons and replaced note-books with individual test sheets. For example, CBSE has not prescribed any book for Computer Science until class 8. "Instead of asking students to carry the books we prescribed, we have converted all computer science classes to practical ones and reduced the number of theoretical tests," said K Navamani, Principal, Angappa Senior Secondary School, Coimbatore.
Another principal from a popular CBSE school in Chennai said that their management has increased the number of physical education classes and introduced new periods like Yoga and Gardening to replace theoretical subjects. "We started using smart boards and exercise sheets for subjects not in the present curriculum," she said.
D Vasanthi, a teacher from a CBSE School in Gopalapuram, said that the school has doubled certain classes like language so that students don't have to carry a heavy bag. "We have introduced double English periods or double second-language periods to bring down the number of books they carry in a day," she said.
Students, however, say that the changes barely makes any difference to them because they carry so many other things to the school anyway. "We have a class work notebook, a homework notebook, record and observation notebook for many subjects. Even if we have only four or five subjects a day, we still carry at least 12-13 books each day," said Prajapathy Nair, a class 11 student.
The same circular had also reminded schools of the recent order by the Madras High Court, that directed schools to scrap homework and school bags up to class 2. Teachers say that parents are however unwilling to comply with the regulation even if schools try to. "In Parent-teachers meeting, parents urge that their children are given homework so that they can start engaging in their wards' academics early on," said Nirmala Kanthan, a primary school teacher.
