School bags are still heavy

The weight of school bags are still remain as heavy as before.

Two years ago I conducted a simple check on the cause of the overweight school bags. Reasons were as listed below:

1) Too many books for every single subject.
2) Unnecessary text book such as Pendidikan Jasmani (Physical Education)
3) Over-sized illustration.
4) Blank pages for writings.
5) No-lesson-but-need-submit-homework.

From Std 1 to Std 3, almost all subjects, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese, English, Mathematics, Sciences have standard text books and standard activities books. Besides that, the school have made other workbooks compulsory. My kids school have two BM "buku latihan tatabahasa" and another two "buku latihan penulisan". Chinese subject has calligraphy excercise (std 3 onwards), character stroke order excercise (std 1 to 3), Chinese phrase Chengyu excercise (std 4 onwards) , writing excercise and practical excercise - at least 4 addition work books. Other subjects, English Sciences 1 text 2 work books, Mandarin Sciences 1 text 1 work book, English Maths 1 text 2 work books, Chinese Maths 1 text 1 work book, English language 1 text 1 work book, Moral 1 text 1 excercise, and, Physical and Health Education 1 text book.

Moving to Std 4, there are two more new subjects - Civics & Citizenship and Kemahiran Hidup. Even the Civics & Citizenship subject has workbook. Take note that there are already a Moral subject which I believe they were subjects redundant each other.

And the ban by the Ministry of Education two years ago of additional work books by the schools seems like have not been enforced.

For Pendidikan Jasmani dan Kesihatan (Physical and Health Eduction), there is a text book as well. The Physical Excercise seems to be material to be read in the classroom and not played in the court or field. Haha, I believe our sport heroes hereoins like Saw Chin Aun, Eddy Choong, Misbun Sidek, Nicol David might have never gone through this text book when they were in primary schools.

And the textbook writers - not sure of their background, no highlights of their sport speciallities. But there were "graphic designer" and "illustrator". 99.9% of the graphics were handdraw and not actual photo. That may be a new method to produce good atheletes and sportmen who can excel in our country. The Std 4 text book was 122 pages thick.

Over-sized illustration is another problem. To educate the pupil about the objects in the classroom, the graphic occupied two pages. That was only one chapter. Other chapters too used two pages each to illustrte canteen, family, playing field so and so on. Despite the size, only 5 to 6 vocabs were contained. Therefore the text books ended up with big illustration.

And the workbooks nowadays sell both pages printed with words and printed with empty lines. So the pupils carried empty lines in their school bags. In our old times, there were no empty line books except the 40 pages excercise books in the brown colour cover printed with school emblem and school anthem.

And if you wonder why the school bags were still heavy despite only 4 to 5 subjects scheduled daily in the school timetable. Remember there are homeworks that your kids need to submit to Cikgu the next day despite the subject is not in the timetable.

So what can be done? I will tell you individually if you post me email personally.