23.04.2024. Clarifications on the amendments to the current “Sanitary Regulations for General Secondary Education Institutions” proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine

In response to a written request from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine regarding the amendments to the current “Sanitary Regulations for General Secondary Education Institutions” proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the following conclusions were prepared regarding their provisions.

The discussion among the medical scientific community and members of the Commission on Hygienic Regulation in the Field of Hygiene of Children and Adolescents of the amendments proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (as set out in the letter of 12.03.2024 No. 1/4371-24) to the current “Sanitary Regulations for General Secondary Education Institutions” allows us to assert that the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine is trying to “adapt” the health and body of Ukrainian children, who have been experiencing the impact of the military aggression of the Russian Federation for more than 2 years, to the technical specifications of the contracts for the purchase and acquisition of devices for educational institutions.

It has been scientifically proven that the use of portable personal computers (laptops, tablets) with video monitors (screens) less than 14 inches WITHOUT the use of a separate keyboard (by students in grades 1-7) and WITHOUT the use of a separate mouse (by students in grades 1-11(12)) has health consequences:

– a sharply forced pathological “front working posture” is formed (p ≤ 0.001), fixation of dangerous: increasing the angle of head tilt forward, increasing the angle of tilt of the thoracic torso forward, the angle of deviation from the perpendicular of the line of sight, reducing the distance between the child’s eye and the monitor screen, which together will lead to the development of pathological conditions in the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine (intervertebral disc protrusions, scoliosis, etc.); 

– manifestations of tension and compensatory shifts in hemodynamics (p≤0.05), autonomic nervous system, and transition to the stage of sub-compensation of adaptive mechanisms of the child’s cardiovascular system (blood pressure, vegetal-vascular dystonia, etc.);

– causes deterioration of mobility, lability of nervous processes, and spread of inhibition processes in the central nervous system (p≤0.01), causes deviations from the autogenous norm, increases anxiety, and reduces children’s mental performance level.

The amendments proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine are unjustified and will negatively impact the health of schoolchildren starting in the first grade.

Therefore, the State Institution «Marzieiev Institute for Public Health of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine» is categorically against the introduction of the amendments to the current Sanitary Regulations for General Secondary Education Institutions proposed in the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine’s letter.

Head of the Laboratory of the Safety
of Children’s Population Vital Functions,
Doctor of Sciences (Medicine)
Alina PLATONOVA