Ita O’Kelly: Let’s lighten our children’s load by thinking digital –
IF the average employee, weighing around 65kg, was asked to carry a bag on their back containing their work kit, weighing in at 21kg or so, there would an outcry, and rightly so.
My daughter, who has just started secondary school, is struggling terribly with the weight of her school bag. So am I.
Weighing almost 11kg, her backpack weighs around a third of her body weight. Put simply, she is unable to physically carry it.
Not many adults would be willing or able to carry a similar load. Yet our children are expected to do so five days a week.
Frankly, it defies logic that jumbo text books for Junior Certificate, spanning the full three years of the study cycle, are inflicted on our children with no thought for their health or safety.
This explains why some of the school books are more akin to old-fashioned telephone directories. The maths book exceeds 600 glossy pages. Utterly ludicrous.
When you add in the pencil case and the copy books, including hard copy books – which should be banned, it amounts to an intolerable strain on a growing child.
Now factor in lots of subjects and the logistics become seriously problematic and totally unworkable.
Traffic congestion in Dublin is up 19pc since 2014. I wonder how much of that congestion is related to school-going children being driven to school because they cannot carry their bags.
The other radical alternative is to buy a second set of books, not an option for most hard-pressed families.
Children’s charity Barnardo’s says that the average cost of second-level school books in 2017 is €275 per annum.
Front-loading the cost of books that run for three years will push this figure up significantly for new entrants.
Notably, only 37pc of respondents to the Barnardo’s survey indicated access to a book-rental scheme at second-level. Inexcusable.
There has to be a better way to educate our children without inflicting lifelong back, shoulder and soft-tissue damage on them.
We need joined-up thinking and directives from the Department of Education and Skills on the format, pagination and weight of school text books.
I have no doubt that schools would be happy to co-operate with such a move.
Some schools have ditched the books in one fell swoop and use tablets or iPads exclusively. Many parents react with horror that their ‘screenagers’ will then be on screens for most of their waking hours.
The move to a digital format in second-level schools is taking place on an ad-hoc basis. Basically, each school decides if it wishes to go that route or not. This is very far from an ideal situation.
While the Department of Education and Skills has a digital policy for schools, it is heavy on aspiration but short on detail, given the complexity of the task.
I think I speak for many parents when I say that a gradual move to a digital format is the ideal scenario. This allows staff to be adequately trained in delivering wholly digital course modules, a very important part of the equation.
It is 50 years since Ireland introduced free secondary schooling for all children. It proved to be a transformative move for our society and happened at a time when there was little money sloshing around government coffers.
In 1967, fewer than 50pc of Irish children aged 15 years were still in full-time education.
The OECD ‘Education at a Glance’ report for 2017, published this week, shows that 91pc of Irish children now complete second-level education. An extraordinary turnaround.
However, the report goes on to say that we invest a lower percentage of our gross domestic product (GDP) in second-level education than our international counterparts. We rank 32 out of 34 countries surveyed.
There is no doubt that the Government’s refusal to accept the Apple tax is burning a hole in the nation’s notional pocket.
I propose that a portion of it be used to gift every Irish secondary schoolchild with an iPad to mark the 50th anniversary of the introduction of free secondary schooling here, and to help lessen their load.
This would not only allow for a gradual changeover to a 21st-century education model for all, but means that it could also be done in a measured, strategic and planned way.
Now, if only I could get my hands on the blockhead who thought that a 610-page maths book for a 12-year-old was a terrific idea.