Poor posture, strains on joints, and we all agree the little ones need exercise, but carrying so much during their developmental years can't be good in the long run.
There is one simple solution, one that is being rolled out at St. Colman's College in Claremorris, County Mayo.
Students at this secondary school will be issued iPads, rather than textbooks. All the knowledge they are to cram into their heads during the term of their education will be dowloaded onto a slim rectangle of plastic and wires.
A few ounces to cart around, rather than a few pounds. It isn't cheap, at E700, but then again, books aren't exactly inexpensive either. And how much would it take to correct little Maeve's curvature of the spine, caused by the rucksack bulging with paper? Cheap in comparison, to be sure.
It's a case of good and bad news for educational publishing firms like Riverdeep, which seeks to make its fortune in the electronic arm of education. All those educational apps are to be applauded.
On the other hand, it's not so rosy an outlook for HMH, a traditional publisher that was gobbled up by Barry O'Callaghan's Riverdeep (until he choked on it).
New editions of old textbooks has long been a profit driver, as school districts found they had to buy new to keep up with changes. Much cheaper to buy a new app that gets loaded into the various computer devices. There's no printing press to fire up, no printers to pay. No vast warehouses to staff, no shipping department.
As for the freelance writers who compose the sentences and paragraphs that make up a textbook, well, they've never been paid much anyway so they're still in the same leaking boat.
The publishers will have to make do with reduced profits, paring away at their staff and finding ever more synergies. In the meantime, the kids will carry their lightweight electronic devices, and it can't be long before the over-loaded backpack becomes a thing of the past, as archaic as the book strap of Tom Sawyer's day.
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