PHC summons officials over heavy schoolbags issue

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has summoned secretary Secondary and Elementary Education Department, managing director Private Schools Regulatory Authority and principals of private schools today in a writ petition for legislation or adoption of a law to the weight of bags of students of primary and secondary schools.

A division bench comprising Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan summoned the officials concerned in the case today (Thursday). The court also issued a notice to Higher Education Commission and Higher Education Department to appear in the case.

A Peshawar-based lawyer, Moammar Jalal, had filed the writ petition and requested the bench to issue direction to the respondents to legislate or adopt a law to the weight of bags of children of primary and secondary schools according to their respective age or class.

About the facts of the case, it was stated in the petition that children under primary and secondary education of the current era face massive challenges and one among others is the weight of their school bags and peculiar curriculum. It was submitted that such disparate weight of about 12kg to 15kg bags causes various types of health issues for the school kids. "In the era when everything has gone digital, there is no attention towards any sort of electronic homework by using emails, etc. The kids are almost left with no alternatives than to carry the anomalous weight of their bags against their own body weight," the petitioner submitted before the court.