On ‘Joyful Saturdays’, Government schools in Rajasthan to have no-bag day

Students in government schools in Rajasthan will now have no-bag day after recess on 2nd and 4th Saturdays. The initiative has been undertaken as a part of the program “Joyful Saturday” started by Samgra Shiksha Abhiyan (SMSA). An order to this end has been issued by Shivangi Swarnkar, state project director of SMSA to all district education officers.

The idea of the initiative is to teach mathematics, language, and environment in a playful manner. “The objective is also to develop values in the students and to hone their creativity,” a department official said.

On Saturdays, the department shall conduct activities like debate, poetry recitation, story writing, acting in play and recitation of stories pertaining to lives of great people. The co-curricular activities will be conducted in the second half of the school time table for which the students won’t need heavy schoolbags.

Under this project, students will also be shown movies on projector, motivationvideos and gender-sensitive videos informing about good touch and bad touch.

Attention on sports, which is an important part of development of students, will also be paid and various sport activities will be organized, an official said.

The interest of students will be kept in mind while deciding on the nature of their engagement. The teachers will ask the students what interests them and try and accommodate them in the group that wishes for similar engagement.

With bags not required in second half on 2nd and 4th Saturdays, there will be lighter bags for students.

Such activities known as as co-curricular activities were seen till now mainly in private schools. In government schools too such activities have been carried out in past. For the first time, however, specific days have been fixed for these activities. 

Order issued

• The initiative has been undertaken as a part of the programme “Joyful Saturday” started by Samgra Shiksha Abhiyan. An order to this end has been issued by Shivangi Swarnkar, state project director of SMSA to all district education officers. 
• The idea of the initiative is to teach mathematics, language, and environment in a playful manner.