Weighty education: Bucharest School Inspectorate looks into the case of student’s heavy schoolbag

The Bucharest School Inspectorate said it would look into the case of a pupil whose schoolbag allegedly weighs 25% of his body weight because of the supplies he needs to bring to school, News.ro reported. The boy’s mother brought up the issue on Facebook and said she would be willing to pay for her son to have a locker for storing his school books and supplies. Most public schools in Romania do not have lockers where students could leave their belongings. “We mention that, in the coming days, the school inspectors will carry out the needed checks to certify the truth of those expressed by Ms. Nicoleta Vaia, and, depending on the outcome, will take the needed steps with the local authorities so as the optimum school conditions are provided to all students in Bucharest,” the School Inspectorate said. The school books have been a topic of public debate this year after Romania’s Education Minister, Liviu Pop, said that private publishing houses would no longer be allowed to print school books. The state-owned publisher Editura Didactica si Pedagogica (Didactic and Pedagogical Publishing House) will instead hold the monopoly on printing school books. On another occasion, minister Pop spoke of the “textbooks’ lords,” who make “colossal fortunes”, while children suffer and the state doesn’t collect taxes. The minister also banned the use of auxiliary textbooks, only to change his mind later, and allow for some of these auxiliaries to be used, but only with the Education Ministry’s approval. editor@romania-insider.com (Photo source: Ministerul Educației Naționale-România on Facebook)