Wake up, Minister of Education!

It's the start of the school year and from the letters published today in just one of the local English dailies, it is obvious that our Minister of Education is stuffing his ears with cotton-wool, perhaps preferring to polish his weaponry in blissful silence instead.

Explore ways to lighten schoolbags

LAST week as school reopened, I was happy to see my daughter going to school. However I am also frustrated to see the heavy school bag that she has to carry.

Out of curiosity, I weighed her bag and found it weighed 6kg, which is almost 30% of her weight. She has to carry her schoolbag to her classroom located on the first floor. I find this unhealthy.

Researches around the world have proven that carrying heavy schoolbags leads to neck, shoulder and back pain and many other medical problems later in their life, if not now. So, why isn’t the Government doing anything about it despite the numerous complaints over the years?

We are living in the 21st century where everyone in the private or government sector is pushing towards e-learning and paperless documentation. Why can’t this be applied to our school system? Why can’t schools use computers to teach? If that does not work, can the school provide a second set of books to be kept in the school for the children to lighten their schoolbags?

21ST CENTURY PARENT,
Penang.

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I don't know about using computers to teach in schools because of the huge costs involved but the suggestion to leave textbooks in classroom lockers is actually workable.

The truth is, with all the workbooks that the kids are made to use, lugging all those textbooks to and from school each day is really pointless and burdensome. Personally, I hardly ever see my own kids using their textbooks to revise their lessons. So, why not just leave them at school? That will lighten their schoolbags by at least 3kg!

Hey - wake up all you folks at the Ministry of Education!

It is high time you take a serious look at taking the load off our kids' backs for good.

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Help, we can’t get textbooks

I REFER to your report, “Parents find it hard to buy textbooks”.

The problem is even bigger for Form 5/SPM students.

There is an extreme shortage of textbooks for them in the market. We have gone to bookshops all over Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and Subang but found no stock. And it is only the start of the year! I believe there is a major problem here. What happened to the book printers and distributors? We really need help.

Secondly, though the students are all prepared for school (minus the textbooks), some teachers are not around. It seems teachers are not very prepared these days, are they? Aren’t they informed of the classes they are supposed to teach before the school term starts?

How is it that as the years go by, our school system seems to take one step back?

CONCERNED PARENT,
Kuala Lumpur.

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One step back or two, what's the difference? We have been churning out increasingly huge numbers of unemployable graduates so much so we can be forgiven to deduce that the people at the Ministry is now finding the problem too huge to handle.

So, the easy way out is to maintain an elegant silence. Behave like an ostrich and pray the problem will go away by itself. Or better still, sit on it and pass the buck to someone else when you retire.