Education is evolving today – from a mass teaching program to a personalised and customised learning experience based on the students’ aptitudes. This is especially true of university education where the number of courses and specialisations are increasing exponentially each passing year. Extracurricular activities, cultural activities and sports are being given equal importance as academics. To cater to the students’ varying needs, even new colleges are mushrooming. However, there has hardly been any progress on one life-defining aspect of university and college education – ergonomics!

College Furniture – Outdated Or Never Updated 

Go online and run an internet search for important points to keep in mind while choosing a college. Multiple results will show up which emphasise on budget, career goals, faculty, campus culture, reputation etc. But you will find almost no results focusing on the quality of the furniture at college! There may be a smile on your face reading that statement but it is no laughing matter. While college students spend almost 9 hours at the desk every day, research shows that almost 83% of them sit on furniture that is not suitable for their body structure! While the college regularly updates its courses, teachers and, not to forget – fees, it rarely upgrades its furniture.

Two Opposing Perspectives?

The students may belong to the same age group but, just as their aptitudes need customised courses, their body structures require customised furniture. Bad posture can cause severe and chronic pains, especially in the back and neck. It also affects the students’ ability to concentrate in class. This, in turn, makes the teachers’ job harder and ultimately affects the college’s results! So, it is time that colleges give up the conventional plug-and-play furniture and invest in customised solutions.

However, there is also the college administration’s perspective to consider. It is a practical impossibility to have personalised furniture for each student who will be replaced with another student in a span of a year. Customisation also costs a lot. Colleges mostly look only for durability in the furniture because it is a big investment and the students are not always careful with them. The second-most important criteria is looks. Ergonomics probably does not even make it to the criteria list!

A Turnkey Solution

This is where experienced designers and fabricators of commercial furniture can come into picture to provide assistance in design-development, value-engineering and professional installation. The furniture should not only be resilient for everyday rough use, it should also be flexible to meet the differing needs of the students as well as the curricula. That is why, equipping the colleges and universities with furniture should be considered as a turnkey project rather than a piecemeal one.

This requires a thorough recce of the campus followed by the development of an appropriate design concept. Needless to say, innovation and versatility in design are absolutely essential to ensure that there is at least some level of customisation in the furniture without burgeoning costs.

Education is evolving today – so must ergonomics!