Ministry weighing in on ‘heavy schoolbag’ issue

PUTRAJAYA: The Education Ministry is determined to get to the bottom of the heavy schoolbag issue.

State and district education officers have gone to a number of schools in several states to check on the issue and a report will be compiled soon, said Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid.

He hoped the report would be completed before Aug 31.

Some schools, he said, are burdening pupils with workbooks.

“Findings from various states will be sent to the ministry so that we can compare the load between national and vernacular schools.

“We will prepare a report soon,” he told a press conference here yesterday.

He said if one subject has two workbooks, pupils will be lugging six workbooks for three subjects. This is on top of the textbooks.

“If the books weigh 2kg, it’s okay, but not if it’s 6kg.”

On July 24, Mahdzir announced that the ministry would review the volume of “burden and load” faced by pupils who have too much homework and have to carry heavy schoolbags around.

He was commenting on The Star’s July 22 front-page report on the issue of pupils lugging heavy school- bags and being burdened with an increasing amount of homework.

In 2000 and 2004, the ministry instructed schools to discontinue workbooks for Years One and Two.

Year Three and older pupils are limited to one additional workbook each for Bahasa Melayu, English, Chinese, Mathematics and Science.