HANOI, Vietnam - Almost 27 per cent of urban students are short-sighted, near-sighted or suffer from other sight defects, reports Nguyen Duc Minh of the Education and Training Ministry's Education Science Institute.

The number among rural students is 14.44 per cent.

The figure for Hanoi is 24 per cent; HCM City 40 per cent and the northern port city of Hai Phong 60 per cent.

Schools did not explain the need for eye protection and most students did not have their sight regularly checked, the official said.

It meant that 80 per cent of students in HCM City; 80 per cent in the northern province of Bac Ninh and 50 per cent in the central city of Da Nang did not know they suffered sight defects.

Diagnosis

A ministry-sponsored conference held in Hanoi to discuss the problem agreed with the official's diagnoses that eye overload and unawareness in schools about the need for sight protection was the cause of the high numbers.

The participants said that children had too many eye-related activities such as study, watching television and working and relaxing with computers.

"Like most city children, my nine-year-old son can relax a little with cartoons on TV or computer games after attending school in the morning and afternoon," said Nguyen Thi Mai on Hanoi's Nguyen Ngoc Nai Street.

"Then he returns to studying at night. Children are being overloaded with these activities and their eyes are under stress throughout the day There is no choice."

But the specialists at the conference agreed that the hazards were not given sufficient attention from either parents or teachers.

Oculist Dr Nguyen Chi Dung warned that serious refractive errors such as short-sightedness, far-sightedness and other sight defects could lead to blindness.

Children should have their eyes checked every year, he said. And rooms should be properly lit so as to protect children's eyes.

Light Saving Centre director Nguyen Van Khai said that almost 10,000 classrooms throughout the country were poorly lit.

Sai Gon Eye Hospital's Refractive Centre director Tran The Hung said 40 per cent of students with refractive faults did not wear glasses.

Unsuitable

But even with glasses, their eyes were not totally protected because many wore unsuitable spectacles.

This made the damage worse, he said.

The specialist advised parents to monitor their children's eye-related activities such as reading books, working on computers or watching television so that they could ensure their offspring's eyes were rested several minutes every hour.