Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The report of a working group to examine potential problems caused by the weight of school bags, which was presented in July 1998, acknowledged that many of the solutions belong at local school level. One of the main recommendations of the report related to the need to heighten awareness of the potential health hazards posed by excessively heavy school bags and, in this regard, my Department initiated an awareness-raising campaign by disseminating the report, with an accompanying circular, to all primary and post-primary schools.

A further circular was issued in 2005, again highlighting the potential health hazard of heavy school bags and outlining a range of measures that could be adopted at school level to alleviate the problem. Ultimately, it is a matter for each individual school to choose those measures that would be most suited to its needs and that fit with how it organises teaching and learning. The report of the working group makes various recommendations in this regard, such as optimum use of storage facilities, developing pupil organisation skills and timetabling.

My Department is aware that positive action has been taken by many schools on these issues. Actions taken consist of a range of measures, including the provision of lockers and, in the case of second level schools, the arrangement of the timetable into double class periods, active liaison with parents and the co-ordination of homework by subject teachers.

Apart from a small number of prescribed texts at second level, mainly in the case of language subjects, school textbooks are not approved or prescribed by my Department at first or second level. Decisions on which books to use in schools are taken at school level. However, the report of the working group was disseminated by my Department to the Irish Educational Publishers Association and it was asked to include consideration of the weight of school texts in its deliberations and liaise with teachers on finding solutions to the issue. The report highlighted that both teachers and pupils favoured the use of multi-level textbook production for convenience and ease of access and cited a high demand for them.

A copy of the report of the working group on the weight of school bags and all current circulars on this issue are available on my Department's website.

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