Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that every school day across Australia, school students are carrying heavy school bags on their way to and around schools and this poses a risk to the long term health of young people in Australia;

(2) acknowledges that reference sources are an important part of the curriculum and for individual courses; and

(3) encourages the Australian and state and territory governments to:

(a) replace hard copy reference books with CD and thumb drive versions of reference materials to lighten the load of students and reduce the incidences of muscular and skeletal injuries to the developing bodies of school students; and

(b) set a target timeline for the replacement of reference materials for school students.

My motion is about schoolbags—how heavy they are for Australian students and how they pose a risk to the musculoskeletal development of young people across this country—but it is also about the opportunity that technology provides. That opportunity is to convert reference materials into removable CDs, thumb drives, other media and even licensed web based access to reference materials, thereby replacing heavy textbooks. It is about tackling this problem with leadership by governments, schools and parents. All must acknowledge the challenge and see that there are ways that solutions can be found that can be done quickly and without great cost.

I was recently contacted by an uncle of a boy in year 7 in a Perth school. As he was picking his nephew up to drive him to school one day, he lifted the schoolbag and found it to be very heavy. He weighed it and found the bag to be 7.5 kilograms. Apparently, it was a heavy day but not unusual. He then asked his nephew to weigh himself, and he weighed 37 kilos. This represents a load of 20 per cent of the boy's body weight.

I know that a lot has changed since I was at school. More research has been done; backpacks are common now, unlike when I was at school. Indeed, more students carry their backpacks using both straps. That is true, but the weight of the load is still a continuing problem. I think a lot of parents will know this when they pick up their children's schoolbags and consider them heavy.

I appreciate the demands of load carrying because, when I was a cadet at the Royal Military College Duntroon in 1988 and 1989, we used to carry 20 or even 30 per cent of our body weight on some occasions. When I returned in the late 1990s as a staff member, there was a rule that cadets should only carry 10 per cent of their weight. In the wider Army context, I knew that, even in the 1980s, soldiers used to buy their own packs to look after their backs when the service issued ones were not any good. Most bought ALICE packs, which had a frame that helped distribute the load.

With regard to school students and loads being carried, I do think things have changed and there is more attention paid to such matters these days. Many schools now have lockers, or at least secondary schools do, so less weight needs to be carried around the schools, but, because secondary students have multiple classes each day, study and homework obligations often require that a range of reference materials be taken to and from school each day. It is here that the opportunity exists, particularly when a school has a laptop policy, for a genuine drive towards replacing books with other media as reference materials. I am not suggesting that such a push should be at the expense of the written word or note-taking but, where possible, converting the reference material from hard copy books to multimedia options should be pursued.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, it has been reported that, because of school related load carrying, there are increasing numbers of children developing irreversible back deformities and half of all children suffer back pain by age 14. Spinal abnormalities and even scoliosis are increasing problems. These reports suggest that schoolbags may be twice the weight of those carried 10 years ago. I find it very scary that the experts consider that regularly carrying more than 15 per cent of body weight over shoulders risks long-term and permanent damage for young, developing bodies.

A study of first-year secondary school students in Ireland found that the mean schoolbag weight was 6.2 kilograms and that 68 per cent of the bags exceeded 10 per cent of body weight. Almost all had backpacks but only 65 per cent carried them with both straps. It was also found, not surprisingly, that weights were greatest on Fridays—6.7 kilos—as students carried home more books for homework and study over the weekend. From that study and from what I have found locally it appears that such problems are common between the UK, Ireland and Australia. I believe that across this country loads in excess of 10 per cent of body weight are being carried and that this represents a health threat to our children and an increasing public health challenge for our nation.

It is therefore my view that this is worthy of the attention of COAG when education ministers meet. It is absolutely the right time for school and education systems to look for the opportunities in this challenge. In particular, if the school has a laptop policy then it should set a time frame for converting all possible reference materials to a form of electronic media. If a laptop policy is unrealistic for a school community then attention needs to be given to alternative measures, which should include a policy of bags with wheels or greater monitoring of loads by the students and by the schools. Although backpacks are probably more socially acceptable for secondary school students, policies that encourage wheelie bags would change the perception over time—let alone their being far more comfortable and less onerous for load carrying. I believe that this is an important policy issue that should be addressed as a priority.

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