Ditch that oversized school bag

Push to focus on character and values won't work unless parents cooperate

By Toh Yong Chuan, The Straits Times, 5 Jan 2013

EDUCATION is an area where parents make a big difference, and the point was drummed home when I accompanied my daughter on her first day of primary school on Wednesday.

Her school - CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel in Serangoon Gardens - invited parents to a three-hour orientation.

The parents were introduced to the teachers, briefed on the curriculum and taken on a tour of the classrooms.

At the briefing, the principal made a passing remark about the school's Primary School Leaving Exam pass rate last year - two pupils failed. Not a single word about grades or academic performance was uttered.

Instead, she coaxed parents repeatedly to be actively involved in their children's education.

But that should not include carrying bags for their children or rushing to school to deliver books that their children had left at home, the principal said, drawing laughter from bemused parents. That would not be the way to teach the pupils to be responsible, she added.

As my wife and I sat through the briefing, we were struck by the extent to which the school went to reach out to parents. The teachers gave their mobile phone numbers readily, and the principal stressed that she reads all e-mail messages sent by parents, promising to try her best to respond to their feedback.

The experience was a sharp contrast to that of eight years ago, when my son, now 15, started Primary 1 in 2005.

There was no formal orientation programme for parents. I do not recall meeting my son's principal, or having his teachers' mobile phone numbers.

A check with four other primary schools found that orientation sessions for parents are common now.

The eight-year gap between my two children showed how much education policies have changed. The report card over the eight years paints a telling picture.

The education budget has swelled 70 per cent, from $6.2 billion in 2005 to $10.6 billion now. There are now more teachers - 30,800 compared with 26,400 in 2005 - and less emphasis on grades.

But numbers alone do not tell the full story of why schools are doing more to involve parents.

While the Ministry of Education (MOE) has always said that parents have to work with schools in their children's education, the pace has clearly accelerated in the last two years.

The explanation lies in the 2011 General Election, I reckon. Even though education did not emerge as a hot-button issue, it was caught up in the wave of post-election policy reviews that led to fundamental changes in areas such as housing and public transport.

In education, several longstanding sacred cows were slaughtered.

The banding of secondary schools based on exam results and the naming of top scorers at national exams have stopped, in order to cut down on unhealthy competition in schools.

Also, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat pronounced in his first policy speech in September 2011 that there would be a renewed push to focus on values and character building in schools. It was not just about getting "A" grades, he said.

Schools have obviously taken the emphasis on values to heart. My daughter's principal stressed to parents that the theme of the school this year is "learning with joy and living our values".

The emphasis on values, not grades, could not have been made clearer. But to imbue good values in children, there is a limit to what schools can do. This is where parents step in.

Within the classroom, teachers can tell pupils what these values are. But outside school, it is up to parents to show these values in their day-to-day behaviour.

It was thus refreshing for me to listen to a half-hour talk by the school's full-time counsellor.

Her message to parents was simple: "Keep calm."

She was too polite to say that kan cheong (nervous in Hokkien) parents who get into a flap easily stress their children out, or worse, set a bad example.

And if parents want to work with schools in their children's education, they can start with something as simple as ditching oversized school bags.

For the longest time, parents have moaned about school bags being too heavy.

But on Wednesday, I saw how parents have contributed to the weighty problem.

For a start, parents should not buy oversized bags at all. Some were bigger than what the small shoulders of seven-year-olds should have to bear.

Although my daughter's school set a 3kg weight limit on bags and disallowed trolley bags, some parents ignored the reminder. I spotted at least one trolley bag and numerous oversized ones.

I studied my daughter's timetable and saw that the school had put in an effort to avoid having pupils take the full slate of books to school on any single day. It also provides personal lockers large enough for a bagful of books.

But these and other steps by schools will not work unless parents cooperate.

A casual conversation with another parent shed some light. I asked her whether she would let her daughter keep her books in school. She replied: "But what if she needs the books for tuition?"

She wants her child to bring books home for tuition instead of keeping them in school, never mind the extra weight.

So this was the lesson that lingered in my mind as I walked out of my daughter's school: The MOE has made sweeping changes to education policies, but for them to work well, parents have to play their part.

If parents and schools can work together to fix a problem as basic as heavy school bags, it can be the promising start to a stronger partnership in their children's character and values education.