Sri Lanka aims to lighten children's load

COLOMBO // For nearly two decades, Sri Lankan children have trudged to school grumbling about the weight of their backpacks, which get heavier year after year as syllabi expand to include new subjects. Many children have complained of back pain and tiredness while parents of younger students are often seen carrying the bags before and after school. It was the same last Tuesday when schools opened after the year-end holiday. Now in line with international trends, Sri Lankan authorities plan to introduce a lighter and more child-friendly bag from 2011 onwards.

Manufacturers of school bags will be provided specifications for the new bag that is expected to be available in 12 months. Currently there is no bag that is specified as a school bag by the authorities. According to Dr Kapila Jayaratne, a community physician and consultant with the health ministry, schoolchildren face a number of problems from carrying heavy backpacks. "General tiredness levels are very high after a school session," he said. "Muscular pains, possible lateral deviation of the body, shoulder level shift and psychological issues are a result of carrying a heavy bag.

"We need to find ways of reducing the load it carries," he said. Nilmini Perera, 30, whose son is in second grade, said she is sad at what she calls the "tragedy of the school bag". "It's extremely heavy even for us - there are times we find it difficult to carry it," she said. "Children have no choice because they have to take all these books to school." Children in the middle grades - five to nine - in state or national schools carry an average of 20 books a day in addition to other material. In the upper grades, 10 to 15 books might be needed for any school day.

In another step towards creating awareness among children about carrying a "healthy school bag", some science textbooks will include a chapter on how to load, pack and carry a school bag, according to Dr Jayaratne, who conducted research on backpacks in 2006-07. WMNJ Pushpakumara, the commissioner general of education publications at the ministry of education, said the use of large-size text books and too many notebooks were among the reasons students carried heavy bags.

"The weight [with its contents] of a school bag can vary from 10kg to 15kg," he said. In an effort to reduce the weight, he said the ministry is asking manufacturers of notebooks and textbooks to limit the number of pages. "For example we want children to be able to have smaller 100 or 200 page notebooks instead of 400 pages and split the textbooks maybe into four parts - serving three to six months - instead of a full year. The load would be much less then," he said.

To alleviate the weight of a packed bag, in recent years backpacks with rollers have been available and many children wheel their bags to school. But these are impractical when climbing stairs. A common sight at schools is parents of young children carrying the bags and handing them over to their children at the gate or carrying it after school. Niluka de Silva, the mother of a grade five girl, said her daughter often complained of a heavy bag and was "dead beat" after school. "The moment she comes out of the school gate, she unloads it on me with a sense of relief," she said.

After learning about ergonomics, the study of matching the equipment used in the workplace to fit the worker in order to prevent injuries, Dr Jayaratne focused his attention on "ergonomics in the school education environment". Ergonomic considerations in schools include the bag, seating/classroom furniture, IT equipment, lighting and sound. Dr Jayaratne concentrated on school bags in particular for his research because of the many complaints about their weight.

"This research was a first not only in Sri Lanka but also in Asia," he said. He received the support of the International Ergonomic Association to undergo a three-week training stint in the Netherlands before embarking on the research. Dr Jayaratne's survey found that 58 per cent of students studied carried bags with a weight that was over 10 per cent of their body weight. "These are unhealthy bags," he said.

Having a healthy and child-friendly bag is only half the solution. Trying to convince children to use these bags is the other half, he said. "We need to inculcate a healthy bag behaviour because there is no use having the model bag if it's not used. "We want these bags to be attractive and child friendly with colours, flowers and butterflies and different compartments." foreign.desk@thenational.ae