The back-to-school season last June got me a little stressed shopping for my Little Boy’s school supplies simply because they were so many.  Mostly are for arts and crafts and being the not-so artsy craftsy that I am, I just relied on my judgment and instinct on deciding what brand of school supplies to buy.

There’s simply so many brands to choose and the more I compare a cheaper brand vs. another one which is a bit expensive, I’ve had this thinking if the school supply I will be buying will last longer. You know, when you have a preschooler, buying crayons and pencils can be a lot more frequent as if these school supplies were disposables. ;)

In our case, we’ve decided to have a mixture of both the cheaper and the slightly higher ones. The cheaper ones are those that are most likely to be bought frequently (a.k.a disposables?) like crayons and pencils while the slightly expensive ones are those that are most likely to last like scissors, brushes, and stamp pads. We thought it’s wise to invest in both off-brand but quality products and high-quality school supplies which are slightly expensive, yet they last the whole year or longer. ;)

It helped that I have guidelines with me to look into on what quality standards to look for in buying school supplies.

These guidelines are called the Philippine National Standards or PNS which the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry’s Bureau of Product Standards developed for the composition, properties, performance and labeling of school materials to help ensure the quality of these products.  And although these standards are voluntary or not under mandatory certification, the DTI, based on the Consumer Act of the Philippines, requires importer, manufacturer, distributor, retailer or wholesaler to follow these PNS.

Violations that include the lack of or the absence of markings or labels, exceeding the maximum level of toxicity, among others, warrants a fine ranging from P5,000 to a maximum of P300,000.

Here are examples of these standards and some of the requirements they contain: Read the rest of this entry »