In Belgium, we now have a law that forces schools to buy essential school material for their students.

It's for kindergarten and elementary schools. They have to buy things like crayons, pens, scissors, other drawing materials ... Basically everything a kid is required to have while at school.

The reason behind it is a matter of social equality. As I'm sure you all know, popular (kids) shows bring out a lot of merchandising, which logically is very popular. Any parent would know how when a kid sees it, they want nothing but. Also, the kid that doesn't have any, will pretty much be left out, by the other kids that do.

Now the problem with this social phenomena is that not everyone can AFFORD to buy their kids this stuff, which generally is rather expensive, especially compared to the more 'brandless' stuff. Which often is of just as good or better quality.

So they want to level the field by having schools buy these kind of things.

In practice, it's already noticable that now that schools are starting again, many schools wait to actually buy it, because 1. they're on a limited budget, which hasn't actuall increased, after this law, 2. they assume many, if not most, parents will buy this stuff themselves anyway, regardless of the law. So they wait and buy it for the kids that don't have it. Result, you still got the 'have's and the 'have not's.

Is this another example of social security taking it too far, or is this a good idea, one that perhaps still has (a lot of) growing pains.

Discuss ...

"What is mind, don't matter. What is matter, nevermind!" - Homer J. Simpson.