Italy Lightens the Load for Schoolchildren

More than four centuries after Shakespeare wrote of "the whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school", Italy's MPs have finally come to his aid.

A bill passed by the lower house of parliament authorizes the setting up in the education ministry of a "techno-scientific unit", no less, to compute the maximum desirable weight of school bags. The proposed law is a reaction to public concern over a study published this month by researchers at Bologna university.

They found 36% of students aged 10 to 15 were suffering from back problems attributable to carrying overloaded school bags. After four months of weighing bags at the gates of two schools in Bologna, the researchers established that the average daily load for an Italian schoolchild was 7.7kg (17lb). One heroic pupil managed to battle to and from school with a bag that weighed 23kg.

An earlier study by the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that schoolchildren should not be expected to carry more than 15% of their body weight. Half of those surveyed in Bologna were over that limit. A junior minister, Mariangela Bastico, said the officials would also be looking at "ways of using educational material so that boys and girls only need to put what is essential into their satchels". The bill will now pass to the upper house of parliament for approval.

What is not clear is who should be held responsible when violations occur - and whether schools will be expected to set up scales so that, like airlines, they can detect carriers of excess baggage.