Ignoring Our Eyes
Imagine a Year 1 pupil sitting at the back of the classroom. Their eyes are narrowed, their head leans slightly forwards, and every so often they rub their eyes.
At the front of the class, the teacher continues writing on the board. The other pupils are busy taking notes, while the child tries to make out letters that look like a row of ants.
After school, the child’s mother asks why their test marks have fallen. Their father suggests spending less time on gadgets. The child nods. No one asks whether they can still see the writing on the board clearly.
Stories like this may be playing out in many families. We are so busy thinking about the quality of children’s education that we forget the most basic tool for learning: their eyes. Indeed, we often neglect our own greatest asset, too.
World Sight Day is marked on 8 October 2026. In recent weeks, the Love Your Eyes campaign has encouraged the public to take greater care of their eye health. The Government, health workers, schools and community organisations are holding screenings, educational events and social activities.
Yet the most decisive form of care often needs no stage, banner or speech. It can begin with a mother or father noticing that their child is squinting or rubbing their eyes. Start by caring for your own eyes, and you will surely care for your family’s, too.
Ministry of Health data offer a compelling reason to stop treating this issue as trivial. During school-based Free Health Check-ups (CKG) conducted from 1 January to 2 September 2026, 288,408 of the 9,241,377 participants had visual acuity below 6/9. That represents 3.12 per cent.
The figures come from initial screening, so further examinations are needed to establish the nature of each child’s vision problem. But imagine a school with 1,000 pupils. If the same proportion applied, about 31 children might need closer attention to their eyesight.
To adults, writing on a classroom board may look clear from a distance. For a child with short-sightedness, it may appear as a thin blur. They may not realise that anything is wrong with their eyes. They only know that the pupil next to them can copy the lesson more quickly, while they fall behind.
Refractive errors, including short-sightedness and astigmatism, can disrupt learning. Correctly prescribed glasses often help children see more clearly. Teachers should therefore be alert to pupils who frequently squint, hold books close to their faces or struggle to read writing from a distance.
Unfortunately, we are often quicker to correct a child’s behaviour than to look for its cause. If a child cannot concentrate, we scold them. If their marks fall, we add tutoring. If they move closer to a screen, we blame the gadget. These responses may seem reasonable, but they are pointless if the child is having difficulty seeing.
Education requires books, teachers and classrooms. But all of them lose some of their value when a child cannot see what they are meant to learn.
Parents often treat their own eyes in much the same way, putting off action until a problem can no longer be ignored.
When small print starts to blur, we hold our phones farther away. When reading a restaurant menu, we look for brighter light. While driving at night, headlights from oncoming vehicles seem dazzling. We laugh it off, as though getting older automatically frees us from the responsibility of having our health checked.
Yet changes in vision need attention, particularly in older age. One problem to watch for is cataracts: clouding of the eye’s lens that gradually blurs vision.
CKG data for the same period recorded 353,186 participants aged 40 and over as suspected cataract cases, out of 13,618,207 people screened. That is 2.59 per cent. Once again, these results indicate suspected cases requiring further examination, not confirmed diagnoses.
Cataracts can make simple activities difficult: reading a newspaper, recognising a grandchild’s face, walking through a market or going down stairs. In many cases, surgery can significantly improve vision. Delaying an examination only prolongs difficulties that may be treatable.