Angara to schools: Provide neutral desks for students

The Senate today approved on third and final reading a bill seeking to mandate all educational institutions to provide neutral desks to all students.

Neutral desks refer to tables or armchairs that is suitable for both right-handed and left-handed students.

With 17 affirmative votes, zero negative and zero abstention, approved was House Bill No. 8654, otherwise known as an Act Mandating Public and Private Educational Institutions to Provide the Appropriate Armchairs to Left-Handed Students, taking into consideration Senate Bill No. 2114, otherwise known as an Act Mandating Public and Private Educational Institutions to Provide the Appropriate Armchairs to Left-Handed Students. The proposed legislation were introduced by Representative Cristina Roa-Puno and Senator Juan Edgardo Angara respectively.

Angara said the bill aims to promote equal development of students by requiring educational institutions nationwide to provide neutral desks to all students in both public and private educational institutions.

Currently, he explained, left-handed students are left without a choice but to work with right-handed armchairs.

Studies showed that a right-handed armchair does not offer left-handed students the same arm support that right-handed students enjoy, causing back, neck and shoulder pain to left-handed students.

According to experts, the inefficient and awkward writing position that left-handed students must adopt in right-handed armchairs causes slower handwriting, placing them at a disadvantage on important timed examinations.

They said thousands of left-handed school children are struggling in the classroom because of a failure to meet their needs.

They estimate that between 10 to 15 percent of the population worldwide are left-handed.

Under the bill, educational institutions are mandated to provide neutral desks equivalent to 10 percent of the student population within one year from the effectivity of the act. The institutions will eventually provide neutral desks to all students.

The Department of Education, the Commission on Higher Education, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority shall be in charge of formulating the rules and regulations, including the administrative penalties for the non-compliance of the act.