Evaluation of the Indonesian National Standard for elementary school furniture based on children's anthropometry

In Indonesia, National Standardization Agency of Indonesia issued the Indonesian National Standard SNI 12-1015-1989 and SNI 12-1016-1989 to define the type of furniture dimensions that should be used by children in the elementary school level. This study aims to examine whether the current national standards for elementary school furniture dimensions issued by National Standardization Agency of Indonesia match the up-to-date Indonesian children's anthropometry. Two types of school furniture, small type (Type I, for grade 1-3) and large type (Type II, for grade 4-6), were evaluated in terms of seat height, seat depth, seat width and backrest height of a chair as well as the height and underneath height of a desk. 1146 students aged between 6 and 12 years old participated in the study. Seven anthropometric measurements were taken including stature, sitting shoulder height, sitting elbow height, popliteal height, buttock-popliteal length, knee height and hip breadth. Based on the standard school furniture dimensions and students' body dimensions, numbers of matches and mismatches between them were computed. Results indicated a substantial degree of mismatch between children's anthropometry and the standard dimensions of school furniture. The standard seat height was not appropriate for students among different grades with the mismatch percentage ranging from 63.4% to 96.7% for Type I and 72.7% to 99.0% for Type II. For desk height, the standard dimensions were not appropriate for students among different grades with the mismatch percentage ranging from 32.3% to 88.9% for Type I and 67.7% to 99.0% for Type II. Apparently, the current standards are out of date and need to be updated. Four different sizes of school furniture were hence proposed to accommodate the variation in students' anthropometry from Grade 1 to Grade 6. The proposed standard dimensions (PrS) of school furniture cover a slightly broader range of age and present a higher cumulative fit than the current standard dimensions (CrS). In addition, a better strategy for sizing can be also developed to fit chairs and desks to a larger number of students.