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  Straits Times Forum 14 Aug 06
Schools waste a lot of paper
Letter from Glorijoy Tan Shi En (Miss)

I AM a junior college student and I write this out of grave concern over the rate at which paper is consumed in schools.

Daily, the photocopy shop in my school uses on average a few thousand sheets of paper. School notices for parents are printed for each student and thick sets of lecture notes are copied for entire cohorts.

Also, with the approaching year-end examinations, students have turned to buying exam papers from previous years. Each student on average buys four sets of revision papers per subject, each set consisting of at least 15 sheets of paper. Multiply that by an average of three subjects and a student population of almost 1,000, and the result screams of a paper waste crisis that is impossible to overlook.

I am not undermining the importance of education and am fully aware that some of these practices are necessary for the cause of education. However, there are many other ways to circumvent the problem.

My question is, how justified is this excessive use of paper? In this age of technology, there has been great emphasis on Web-based learning as opposed to traditional pen and paper.

The introduction of the Integrated Virtual Learning Experience (IVLE) and school servers has made progress towards this movement. However, it is evident we are still far from having developed a culture of Web-based learning.

Perhaps schools should play a larger role in advocating saving of resources. In order to bypass the problem of printing excessively, a greater proportion of notes can be uploaded onto school servers where students can access the information without having to print it out.

In this way, students will also be compelled to take responsibility for their own education. Likewise, students should be encouraged to request two pages to be shrunk into one, not to mention double-sided copying. Schools can even regulate the amount of paper used each day.

Environmental concern needs to go beyond the annual Environment Week. Developing a habit of preserving resources is a form of education in itself. The crux of the issue lies in what is at stake - frankly, are we learning to kill our Earth?
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