In the past couple of days, I found myself entrusted with the role of picking up two primary school students from their respective schools and taking them home. This is part of adulting, where you get impromptu calls asking you to pick up pupils from school because their parents can’t make it.
I had to wind up work at my workplace, jump on a motorcycle, and beat the Kigali traffic just to make it to the schools before the pupils got fed up with waiting. Thankfully, I made it to these schools on all occasions just in time to take the students home.
What shocked me when I got to the schools was how students as young as 9 years old were carrying bags so heavy. I asked (Mugabo,) one of the students, why his bag was so heavy, and he mentioned that he carries all his books every day to school.
We had a brief conversation as we waited for our cab, and he said that he always carries his books whether he will take that lesson that day or not, and he doesn’t see an issue with that. He mentioned that everyone in his class does the same and that it is the norm at their school.
When I dropped Mugabo off at home, I found his mother there, and we had a brief conversation about it. I was concerned about the practice, but she didn’t seem as bothered as I was. I told her what I thought and left.
The practice of students carrying heavy backpacks to school every day is a dangerous one in the long run, but it has been normalized. I hope the powers that be can wake up one day and do something about it.
Research advises that a student’s backpack should not exceed 10% of their weight. This simply means that if a student weighs 40 kilograms, their backpack should not exceed 4 kilograms. However, most, if not all, students in Rwanda are carrying backpacks that are way above 10% of their weight.
Carrying heavy backpacks poses many dangers to students, and this is something that has been ignored by the school authorities and even the Ministry. It is time something is done. The young people are undoubtedly the future of Rwanda, but where will the country be if all people in their mid-twenties are complaining of backaches?
Issues associated with carrying heavy backpacks at a young age may include:
Muscle pain and strains on their joints, as heavy backpacks add extra weight to their developing bodies and spines, which usually leads to imbalances.
Nerve compression resulting from extra pressure applied to the nerves, which leads to numbness and tingling in the student’s hands and arms.
Spinal misalignment, which involves the spine shifting from its original position to another due to excess pressure and weight caused by the backpack. This usually becomes a very serious concern if not attended to in time.
Poor posture resulting from carrying a heavy backpack for a long period. The student will find themselves hunching forward in order to balance their bodies while moving because the heavy backpack is always trying to pull them backward with its weight.
In order to address the issue of Rwandan students carrying heavy backpacks, school authorities, NGOs in the education field, and other stakeholders, with guidance from the Ministry of Education, should come up with measures to ensure that students still get a quality education without compromising their physical well-being.
Some of the ways this can be done include the following:
Adjusting the school schedules so that students are able to carry only the books that will be used on specific days.
Providing classroom lockers where students can keep all their books and only take out the ones they need to use on specific days.
For schools that have the ability to provide individual lockers to their students, this should be implemented.
If these measures are put in place and implemented, we can ensure that our students are receiving a quality education while also remaining physically fit and healthy. Because, besides other reasons, carrying heavy backpacks during primary school years is one of the reasons why so many young people are suffering from back pain today.
