Today picked up my daughter's school bag & almost broke my
back. It is HEAVY. I mean really heavy. We keep on talking about reducing the load on our children's back but no on has any idea on how to do it.
I have an Idea. Nothing to do with the telecom operator. If we take out all the text books & leave just the note books in the bag it is considerably lighter. So the challenge is to make the bag text book free. People have tried various methods in the past. Leave text book in school..not a feasibility as kids require to refer to books at home too. Have a school copy and a home copy - too costly solution.
My recommendation for Smriti Irani:
Talk
to companies like Amazon. Ask them to give Kindle like devices (with no backlight) with a
certain mechanism in it which allows only Govt authorized books to
be downloaded. Maybe the text books also can be installed at every school. Misuse of the device will be not possible. Let us see the advantages due to this:
1) Multi Kilos of books removed in favor of around 200g of a device
2) Number of books to be printed drops leading to reduction of trees cut & help improving of environment.
3) Any mistake in books can be corrected easily and updated in children's device easily.
4) Better than tablets as there will be no strain of eyes of children.
5) Book publishers will prefer as every book sold is a total profit.
6) Device makers will have a ready made market of people who would prefer to upgrade to the regular/actual device.
7) Huge number of devices will help in ensuring that the device maker can cut costs and provide each device at a lower cost but still make huge profit.
8) The overall cost of Device+books over the number of years will work out to be very cheap compared to the actual paper books.
9) The Govt may fund it for Govt owned school. Seeing school children using such devices will encourage others to also join school to get these devices.
10) Rich Schools/parents can easily fund this for their wards
11) If any child forgets the device one day, extra copy can easily be given from the school.
There are some other points to consider too:
1) Charging points - Maybe all schools can have points in every bench. With the electrification of villages going on this may not be a problem in future.
2) Stolen devices - That's why I prefer having a device where loading of books is controlled. Without the installer option this device will become useless for others.
3) Damages/lost - Some amount of damage/loss have to be accepted.
Maybe others may have more pro/con points, but I feel that the important task of reducing the weight the kids carry will be achieved.
Please comment.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice thought and many parents might have gone through similar exercise who spend their qualitative time with kids. I might simply buy the kindle and scan by byself. Also I can think if making it as a startup company and tie up with schools and make the manual scan process a bit more qualitative.
ReplyDeleteVery good idea Anand. But I see reluctance from schools in providing charging points at each desk and also the electricity bills which the schools have to boot. My suggestion is to provide a cloud based soft copy of the text books to the students. They can log in using desktops, laptops or any other device at home and keep the text books at school. This can be a starting point in reducing the load of the bags. This can be initially implemented for private schools and later implemented for Government school going kids.
ReplyDeleteElectricity for charging such devices is minimal. Even a single charge for my Kindle keeps it running for weeks. Good idea about the cloud, but again will be too elite solution. All kids in the school where my children go may also not be able to afford it. With Govt help a Kindle type device will be a cheaper but quality alternative.
DeleteAs you know, I love my Kindle. It is cheap and can be made cheaper. Very less weight. no backlight so no strain on eyes.
If there are any other such devices, those companies can also bid for this solution.
Thank you Satish for your comment. The purpose was not just for my own kids but getting a solution which can be implemented for the lesser privileged too.
ReplyDeleteManual scanning of text books may also run into copyright issues with the publisher (Not if it is a personal copy - not really sure about the law there).
If personal copy is legal, I think even I will scan the books and ask my kids to keep text book in school locker.