Jammu and Kashmir government has done away with formal textbooks and school bags for pre-primary students at the schools. A notification issued by Principal Secretary School Education, Asgar Hassan Samoon late on Wednesday also directed schools that no homework is assigned to students upto class 2. The new rules issued in the notification, which amended Rule 8 of the Jammu and Kashmir School Education Act 2002, ordered school heads to provide a maximum of two notebooks/workbooks to pre-primary students instead of formal textbooks. Furthermore, the notebooks are to be kept in the custody of the teachers in the school itself. “Students of pre-primary level are not asked to carry any bag except light carrier for lunch box,” read the new rules. The new rules have also specified prescription of subjects from 1st standard to 7th with Language and Arithmetic for standards 1st and 2nd, Language, Environmental Science and Arithmetic for standards 3rd-5th , and Language, Social Sciences, Mathematics and Science for 6th and 7th standard or as prescribed by the affiliating authority (the concerned board to which a school is affiliated). The maximum permissible weight of the school bags for different classes has also been fixed under the new rules. While there will be no school bag for pre-primary students, the weight of a school bag for class 1 and 2 should not exceed 1.5 kg. Likewise, the permissible weight of school bags has been fixed as 3 kg, 4 kg, 5 kg and 5.5 kg for standards 3rd-5th, 6th-7th, 8th-9th and 10th classes. “Students shall not be asked to bring additional books and extra material to school,” the new rules read. “Government may cancel affiliation and recognition of the school violating the provisions,” reads the order.
