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Education Ministry Urged To Ban Lato-Lato Toy In Schools Due To Injury Risks

Education Ministry Urged To Ban Lato-Lato Toy In Schools Due To Injury Risks

The lato-lato toy made out of two plastic balls connected with a string has injured children who weren’t careful while playing with it.

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Parents and schools have been advised to monitor the lato-lato toy, also known as latto-latto or nok-nok in Indonesia, that’s currently popular with schoolchildren.

The toy is identifiable by two plastic balls connected via a string and it produces a clacking sound when played.

To play, players put their fingers through the looped string or grab ahold of the small handle attached and move their hand up and down to get the two plastic balls to clack together.

The toy first went viral in Indonesia and the country’s president Joko Widodo was seen playing with it too.

Unsurprisingly, the “circular nunchucks” has caused injuries when children accidentally hit themselves with them while playing.

According to New Straits Times, a doctor in Malaysia shared an incident of a child getting hit on the nose while playing with the latto-latto and needed treatment for the injury.

Kedah, Parents, Community and Private Sector Schools Engagement chairman Zainol Abidin Mohamad has urged the Education Ministry to consider banning the toy from schools as a safety precaution.

The lato-lato toy is getting popular and we believe it has spread to all schools. The toy can cause serious harm to children or whoever plays with it if it hits the person’s face.

Kedah, Parents, Community and Private Sector Schools Engagement chairman Zainol Abidin Mohamad

The state’s Religious, Education and Human Resources Committee chairman Datuk Najmi Ahmad said he would discuss with the State Education Department to identify the best approach to manage the matter.

He also advised parents to keep an eye on their children when they play with the toy.

Netizens agreed the toy can be dangerous for children and supported the decision to ban it.

However, it also made people question why the schoolchildren were allowed to bring the toys to school.

Since the toy produces an annoying clacking sound when it’s played with, some netizens are not sorry to see it go.

Where has it been banned?

So far, it seemed like the latto-latto toy has been banned in Sabah schools due to the danger it posed to schoolchildren.

The lato-lato was a popular toy in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and was known as ‘clackers’ there.

The toy is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration due to the high risks of injury among children.


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