A striking sight, Wednesday afternoon in the House of Representatives. During a round-table discussion, the eight participating MPs hardly look at their phones: their gazes remain focused on the speakers. And when they check their messages, they get a disapproving look from their colleagues. “President”, VVD MP Mariëlle Paul remarks halfway through the conversation, “we are all so intimidated that we no longer dare to look at our telephone.”
A group of experts and experts by experience came to The Hague at the invitation of MPs René Peters (CDA) and Harm Beertema (PVV) to discuss mobile phones in schools. Peters and Beertema have been arguing for a ban on smartphones at school for some time now. “It is the adolescent brain against Silicon Valley,” Peters sighs during the round table discussion. And such a struggle, he believes, ‘you cannot leave to schools’.
More than a quarter of secondary school students can “regularly think of nothing other than the moment when you can use social media again”, according to a 2022 study by the Social Cultural Planning Office. A third of the students try in vain to spend less time on it. That adolescent brain won’t beat Silicon Valley that easily.
Read also: Banning smartphones at school: it is possible. ‘Students talk to each other again during recess’
Detention as a sanction
And the school boards are also noticing this: the rule ‘at home or in the vault’ seems to work at some schools. For example, Gert Verbrugghen, teacher at the Alfrink College in Deurne, talks about the mobile phone ban at his school. After four years without smartphones, Verbrugghen sees a good result: teachers are no longer enforcing digital distractions, and students talk to each other again during breaks, he sees. And if they are caught with a smartphone, there is a sanction: detention.
Nevertheless, the VO council, the largest interest group of secondary schools, believes that a national ban is not the solution. The council believes that agreements can be made better at school level. This leaves room for schools to decide for themselves whether or not to use smartphones in education. For example, schools can draw up rules via their student charter.
“Few people,” says Paul van Meenen (D66) on Wednesday at the round table discussion, “think that we should allow mobile phones without any form of policy.” But the question facing the House now is: should there be a ban? He himself is “open to it,” he says. “If it helps, it helps. And if it doesn’t work, then don’t.”
Politics hesitates
Support for a ban has so far been limited in the House of Representatives. When CDA MP Peters suggested this again last November, he only received support from the PVV, JA21, Group van Haga and independent MP Pieter Omtzigt.
So far, the government has also been reluctant to impose a ban. Education minister Arie Slob (ChristenUnie) said in 2018 that it is “really a choice that schools have to make”. “We are not going to regulate this from above.” Current minister Dennis Wiersma (VVD) called a ban “clumsy”. Before there is a law, “we will be a few years further,” he said last November.
That is also what Patti Valkenburg, professor of Media, Youth and Society at the UvA, questions. “A law is not flexible. And before the law is there, it can be changed again,” she said at the hearing. The developments in technology are going so fast that it is difficult to keep up with legislation, says the researcher. For example, the Artificial Intelligence Act of the European Union is in danger of being delayed because the drafters of the new law were taken by surprise by the arrival of ChatGPT.
France first
The Netherlands is not the only country without rules for mobile phones at school: more than half of the EU member states have no form of mobile phone ban in schools. France has introduced a ban since 2018. In Germany, some of the federal states leave the rules to the schools: 20 percent of schools there have a mobile phone ban, the minister of education writes to the Chamber.
Ultimately, says Van Meenen after the round table discussion, the question is: what is the role of the government? “Will it help if we as a government ban this, a ban that must ultimately be enforced in schools?” The same objection is also heard from the VVD. Lisa Westerveld (GroenLinks) also wonders whether such a ban on mobile phones in schools is legally possible at all. She thinks that needs to be researched first.
In Poland, the government also leaves it to schools, but not without obligation: boards there are obliged to draw up rules for mobile use. According to MP Van Meenen, the latter “could be a good start”: asking schools to draw up policy.