RESUMEN
The relationship between lightening degree in schools and vision problems was investigated in a series of 500 pupils (aged between 11 and 14 years) from both rural and urban areas, schooled in 21 different classrooms. The tests revealed that natural lightening is observing the health standards in a percentage of 100% in the urban classrooms and is deficient with 16.64% in the rural ones. Artificial lightening is inappropriate in all investigated classrooms (both rural and urban). Vision, estimated by visual acuity test, proved to be more affected in the rural areas (14% of the children) where lightening conditions are more deficient, than in the urban pupils (12.8%). It was also noticed that the active detection index of vision disturbances is lower in the rural as compared to urban pupils (5.7% and 28.12%, respectively). School lightening should be a priority in the public health programs.