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NCERT proposes 10 ‘bagless days’ a year for students from Classes 6 to 8

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Last Updated31/07/2024

To provide respite to students from Classes 6 to 8, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has proposed 10 ‘bagless days’ to be implemented by schools across States.

In its guidelines, the NCERT said that teachers would have to plan activities for students to learn from local vocational experts, including carpenters, gardeners, potters, and artists.
“On an average, teachers and children spend around six hours a day and over 1,000 hours a year in school. Minimum 10 days or 60 hours of the school time should be allocated to the activities for this programme,” the guidelines, which are in line with the requirements of the National Education Policy 2020, stated.
“The child’s need to be prepared for the ‘world of work’, and a work-centred pedagogy can be pursued with increasing complexity while always being enriched with the required flexibility and contextuality,” the guidelines said.
The guidelines said bagless days were important to provide exposure to the world outside the classroom with transactions that affect and contribute to day-to-day life; to build observation-based learning capacity and scope for practice; and to develop an understanding of the connectedness of community and interdependence. Bagless days will also help develop interdependence in classrooms, with theoretical as well as practical application and promote the dignity of labour through hands-on activity and existing local vocations, the guidelines said.

Bhopal-based P.S.S. The Central Institute of Vocational Education ran a pilot project in schools across several States to refine the guidelines for bagless days.
Officials said the pilot project also revealed the positive impact of bagless days on the students’ interest in learning vocational skills.
In the guidelines, the bagless days’ curriculum has been divided into three themes —
- exposure to aspects of science, environment and tech;
- exposure to public office, local industry and business; and
- art, culture, and history.