KUCHING: The issue of heavy school bags has been debated at all levels, public, professionals and the authorities but the problem is still haunting the children to date.
Sarawak Teachers’ Union (STU) president Adam Parkash Abdullah said it looked like the heavy school bags issue is quite difficult to solve by the professionals.
“Probably it is time we listen to the masses and make good decisions. We do not believe that we have to engage consultants as in many cases for us to solve this issue.
“We would like to urge the authorities concerned to read the many comments and suggestions on this issue and act upon them,” he told New Sarawak Tribune.
“Sometimes, it’s the words on the streets that could provide solutions,” he said.
STU, he said, would play its part and continue to advise our members to help ease the burden of these children by being more creative and innovative in their teaching and think of effective teaching and learning without much dependence on the textbooks as well as workbooks.
As such, he said, some load would be reduced from the children’s school bags.
In the meantime, Adam said, STU would seek the assistance from the Talent Development, Ministry of Education, Innovation and Talent Development (MEITD) in solving this issue in Sarawak.
“We hope Education Department in Sarawak would set up a task force soon probably with MEITD and representatives from the unions, Parent-Teacher Associations (PIBGs) as well as other non-governmental organisation (NGOs) to seriously look into this problem and provide effective long term solutions to the issue concerning heavy school bags,” he said.
“We have done much talking and now it is time for real action. Let us all work together to provide our children with a better, healthy and interesting school experience,” he added.
Yesterday, the Education Ministry in a written reply posted on the Parliament’s official website said it would study the issue of heavy school bags in detail and draft a holistic solution as the approach taken previously could not fully address the problem.
