Double schoolbags a major issue in Chinese primary schools

PUPILS in Chinese primary schools not only face the problem of overly heavy schoolbags, many of them have to carry two schoolbags to school, a very surprised deputy education minister, Datuk Chong Sin Woon, discovered during a visit to a school in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.
Chong was in SJK (C) Yoke Nam to officiate the opening of book cabinets when he was told of the double-schoolbag phenomenon.
While broaching the subject of heavy schoolbags in his speech he took the opportunity to ask some 1,000 pupils gathered in the school hall whether they had been carrying two schoolbags. More than half the number raised their hands to say “yes”, Sin Chew Daily reported yesterday.
It is understood that this is because the pupils need an extra bag to carry workbooks.
Expressing his surprise, Chong said schools should not make workbooks the focus of education, but instead turn classrooms into places where learning becomes a joy for students, with a minimal burden on them and the teachers.
Only then can schools produce creative students, he said.
School is where elementary pupils learn to read, write, calculate and listen, he said, and hoped that by the time these pupils enter secondary schools, they have built self-confidence and acquired the ability to handle pressure and meet the challenges ahead.
Pointing out that pupils in Chinese primary schools are generally weaker in Bahasa Malaysia and English, he urged these schools to enhance the pupils’ grasp of these two languages to put them in good stead when they enter secondary schools.
Yoke Nam’s board chairman Hsu Yu Chiang said to address the problem of heavy and double schoolbags, the board and parent-teacher association raised funds to purchase book cabinets for pupils to keep their workbooks.