COMMENT | The issue of heavy school bags is one that affects many schoolchildren. Complaints have been made to school principals, but while there has been a lot of discussion, implementation is often found wanting.

In the case of my son’s school, two parents had in fact, volunteered to put together a comprehensive report and submitted it to the school’s Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). A consultant was also invited to provide a solution, and her quotation submitted.

After three months of silence, when pressure was finally exerted by the state education department, both the school’s headmistress and PTA committee scurried all over to ask for both report and quotation again.

Political will

It takes a lot of political will to push for a paradigm shift. In some schools, where there has been heavy investment in digital boards, textbooks can be easily scanned and converted into portable document files (PDFs) that can be used on the digital boards...