Kobe City: Reducing the Burden of Carrying School Supplies, etc. to and from School at Elementary Schools

School Education Division, School Education Department, Board of Education Secretariat (December 16, 2022) There have long

been opinions that the large number of teaching materials carried by children to and from school is a burden on them, and with the recent addition of personal computers for study purposes, there are concerns that this burden may increase further. In recent years, the addition of computers for study to be carried home has also become a concern.
Therefore, we would like to report on the current status of the review and future measures to reduce the burden of carrying items to and from school at Kobe Municipal Elementary School.

1. Status of Efforts to Date

Since 2008, instead of the conventional response of “taking all the basics home,” the school has been reviewing its response “in consideration of the burden on the children,” such as leaving textbooks and school supplies home depending on their use, after examining what items can be left behind at school.

2. Status of review

Most of the textbooks except for Japanese and arithmetic, which are often used for home study, are left at school.
All schools are taking measures to allow students to leave school supplies such as keyboard harmonicas and arithmetic sets, which are particularly burdensome to carry around.
The frequency of students taking their study computers home increases as their grade level increases.

3. Future measures

Change the concept from “school supplies that can be left at school (left-behind study materials)” to “school supplies that can be brought home for home study”.
In the process of this change, we will ask students to think of a new catchphrase to replace the existing “left-behind” concept. From among the ideas gathered, we will spread the word suitable for the initiative to the entire city of Kobe.