'Bag-free' Saturday announced

Bengaluru: According to a notification issued by the State Education Department of Karnataka, all government-run primary and high schools must have a "bag-free" day every month. The new 'Sambhrama Shanivara' (Celebratory Saturday) aims to reduce the burden on students, at least one Saturday in a month.

The Department of State Education Research and Training (DSERT) has released student activity guidelines for teachers under the 'Sambhrama Shanivara' programme. A circular issued by the Samagra Shiksha chapter of Karnataka state mentioned that the new directives of DSERT must be made use of.

As the name suggests, the bag-free day will encourage students to acquire knowledge beyond textbooks. This programme aims at turning students into better citizens for the future by conducting activities about civic consciousness.

Apart from reducing the burden of books, the bag-free day helps children better understand their surroundings. Under the programme, teachers' manuals and pictorial activity books for students have been prepared to initiate the bag-free day. The pictorial activity books that are prepared will cover 10 separate subjects.

The bag-free initiative was supposed to launch earlier as it was first announced in 2019. The programme did not gather pace due to the pandemic and had to be halted. Since things are getting back to normal in the education field, the department of education has opted to reinitiate the programme.