Distracted students, unrest in the classroom, cyberbullying – a report from the Secondary Education Council last month sparked up the discussion again about whether it would be a good idea to ban smartphones from Dutch schools – a question that the secondary education interest group itself “ too one-sided”. because mobile phones do provide distraction, but also offer many advantages. “Think of enlivening the lessons with online quizzes, effective practice apps and the possibility to pass on schedule changes and grades immediately.”
The council advocates a suitable and unambiguous policy within schools, where the rules sometimes differ from teacher to teacher. And, in the best Dutch tradition, for ‘self-regulation of students’.
The Dutch doubt – a CDA motion for a national ban did not reach a parliamentary majority in November, but Minister Dennis Wiersma (Education, VVD) still wants to discuss it with the sector – is not exactly unique, as a tour among the foreign correspondents of NRC. In Europe, France has had a ban on smartphones in the classroom since 2018, with the exception of lycées where children from 15 years go. This inspired politicians in many other European countries to debate, but it rarely led to measures. In Poland, for example, education minister Przemyslaw Czarnek suggested that he could amend the law, which now does not allow schools to ban students from bringing their smartphones into class, but according to a television interview, he also wants to be “someone who not only forbids, but also listens to students”.
If he were to do that in the Flemish town of Haasrode, near Leuven, the students of the Sint Albertus College would tell him that there is more to experience at school, and that they pay more attention to their friends, now that the school board forbids them to use their phones as soon as the bell has rung – so noted broadcaster VRT. A ban is regularly discussed in Belgium, but education minister Ben Weyts (N-VA) does not want it and encourages schools to draw up their own rules.
That perhaps unexpected enthusiasm is not shared by their peers in Italy, where a ban is in place, reaffirmed in December by the new education minister Giuseppe Valditara. Student union Medi from the Lazio region complained that the minister does not see schools as a place where the citizens of the future are formed, but wants schools that focus on the past. The students emphasize that their generation was born as ‘digital natives’ and believe that they should be taught how to use mobile phones responsibly.
The situation is very different outside Europe, where there are concerns about ‘gaming addiction’ (China) and the photographing of girls (Saudi Arabia). In the United States, it was California, the home state of the iPhone, that was the first to allow a ban on smartphones in the classroom.
France
You won’t see mobile phones in French classrooms very often. Since 2018 it is in primary education and on lectures (for students aged 11 to 15) forbidden to use cell phones at school. Telephones should not only be used in classrooms remain in the bag, use is also prohibited for students in the corridors, on the schoolyard and in the gym building. Lyceesfor children aged 15 to 18 who are not in vocational training, are free to choose whether to allow the use of smartphones, although there are now voices rise to introduce a national ban there as well.
The 2018 ban was an election promise made by President-elect Emmanuel Macron in 2017. According to him, smartphone use too often led to unrest in classes and cyberbullying, and gave students “access to violent and especially pornographic” images.
No research has yet been done into the consequences, but teachers and trade unions have received mostly positive media coverage responded. The introduction would not have led to much resistance – not least because smartphone use was already banned in many schools. And the ban has created more peace in the classroom. However, there are also teachers who to remark that the ban is not enforced everywhere and that cyberbullying also happens outside the school walls.
Just like in the Netherlands, the launch of ChatGPT – a chatbot equipped with artificial intelligence that effortlessly generates coherent school assignments – has sparked discussion in education. The prestigious Parisian political science academy Sciences Po took flight and introduced the use of this and similar algorithms at the end of January forbidden. Education Minister Pap Ndiaye believes that the use in schools is also “framed” must be, but don’t know how yet. A ban in public schools, such as in New York City in force cannot be ruled out.
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China
“If lessons are canceled and Judy has to be picked up from school early, she will call us on her teacher’s phone,” says Cindy Guo, her mother, on the phone. Judy does have a cell phone, but it stays on her desk at home during school. “I check that,” says Guo. Judy is in the second grade of high school.
Cell phones have been banned throughout China until the fourth grade of secondary school since 2021. After that, the phone can be taken with you, but it must be left off during the lessons. “That will not always happen,” laughs Guo.
The ban came because cell phones would only make children addicted to computer games and expose them to unhealthy things on the Internet. And it would be bad for their eyes. The government thinks it is better if the children do more sports and read more books.
Judy will receive her homework assignments through her cell phone. Still more convenient than on the computer, because it has to start up first. Her teachers also send her messages via the social medium WeChat. But she doesn’t look at all that until she gets home.
Guo thinks it’s very good that cell phones are not allowed in the classroom. “Especially younger children still have little self-control, and before you know it they are addicted to games,” she says. That happened to her neighbor boy, who was on his phone all night. His school grades plummeted. Now he is in a bad school, with little chance of going to university. “As parents, you want to prevent that.”
India
In the Indian state of Maharashtra, authorities seem to see more and more disadvantages in smartphone use. A digital-free evening was announced in Vadgaon in October, so that residents have to spend one week a week without television and mobile phones, in the hope that this will improve social contacts. The village council of Bansi decided a month later that children under the age of eighteen could even go completely no longer allowed to use a smartphone. “After corona, when they all had to use a mobile phone for online education, they became addicted to it,” said the village head in the Times of India. Gaming and social media would slow down learning.
The pandemic had exposed a major disparity in Indian education. The mobile phone became the method of sending homework or filming lessons, but a large proportion of the children did not even have one. This resulted in major learning arrears – sometimes even dropping out of school – in poor population groups. Since then, policy makers have focused on a more equal implementation of digital tools, including smartphone methods, across all educational institutions.
Middle East
Especially in the prosperous Gulf area, children often get their own telephone or tablet at a young age. In the United Arab Emirates, for example, on average at the age of seven. The children spend between two and three hours a day on it. In recent years, discussions have erupted from time to time in the media and, of course, on social media as to whether mobile phones should therefore not be banned in schools.
In Saudi Arabia, the authorities actually announced a ban in 2021, not so much because phones can disrupt children’s attention for lessons, but for privacy reasons. The authorities mainly want to prevent the filming and photographing of students, pupils and staff. The images of girls in particular are sensitive and can be severely punished.
In another prosperous country in the Middle East, Israel, mobile phones have been banned in all primary schools since the end of 2019.
United States
California, of all places, had the scoop. The coastal state that is home to many of the tech companies whose smartphones and apps are said to keep kids from learning, passed the first law in the US in 2019 that allows schools to ban cell phones. According to the bill’s proponent, “there is increasing evidence that classroom phones degrade academic performance, promote cyberbullying, and contribute to depression and anxiety among teens.”
Yet it is still up to (elected) school district boards in California to actually ban cell phones. This is the trend all over the country. In the 2009-2010 school year, two years after the arrival of the first iPhone, 90 percent of public primary schools and 80 percent of secondary schools still had bans, but many of those bans were gradually lifted. For a few years now, the pendulum has been swinging back to prohibition.
Not only students themselves often oppose this, also their parents. One reason: they want to be able to reach their child in the classroom in the event of a shooting.
With the cooperation of Annemarie Kas, Dennis Boxhoorn, Emilie van Outeren, Merijn de Waal, Garrie van Pinxteren, Lisa Dupuy, Floor Bouma, Floris van Straaten and Wieland van Dijk.
A version of this article also appeared in the February 4, 2023 newspaper