The regulation on mobile phone use, the main protagonist of (almost) all the debates at the beginning of this school year, will finally arrive next week to the School Council of Catalonia (CEC), in a extraordinary debate summoned by the president of the council, Jesús Vinyesand for the general director of Family Care and Educational Community of the Department of Education, Raquel García. Before, this Thursday, the 9thhe Barcelona Municipal School Council (CEMB) “due to the escalation and centrality that the debate on the regulation of cell phone use is taking these days,” has decided to extend the call to all members of the CEMB and transform the monographic debate session into a extraordinary full and change its format from ‘online’ to a face-to-face session; as EL PERIÓDICO has learned. Social pressure has led the ‘department’ to take the bull by the horns.
The topic is on the agenda and he put it the educational community: teachers and families. The first, prohibiting or regulating its use in the institute (in some cases due to pressure from families and in others on their own initiative, when they were overwhelmed); and the second, with a grassroots movement of organized families -for the moment, via WhatsApp and Telegram groups- to end the social pressure which leads to buy your first smartphone at 12 years old, with the transition from primary school to high school. A movement that in a few weeks has obtained an unexpected impact by its own promoters, reaching the 10,000 families throughout Catalonia (and with ‘brother’ groups that have begun to emerge in other parts of the State such as Madrid and Mallorca).
Are two parallel debates -It is one thing to regulate what happens at school and quite another what we do at home- but they are closely linked: If children don’t have cell phones, they won’t take them to school..
Regarding the first, today the Department puts all the pressure on the management of the institutes, delegating responsibility to each center via the famous center autonomy. “There are centers that prohibit the entry of mobile phones, but that is an issue that has to be included in the operating rules of each center. These decisions have to be discussed and worked on within the school council of each center. The entry of mobile phones mobile phones in centers is not bad per se. Here there is a previous issue which is training in good use of mobile phones in which also families have to participate“, responded the ‘councillor’ Anna Simó in an interview with this newspaper carried out on August 31, before the controversy broke out.
“I would like Catalonia to be an example for having aWe have school councils where families and teachers can make decisions like that based on evidence; but that is not a debate that comes from the top down. Vertically it doesn’t work,” added the ‘councillor’ in the same interview.
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Two weeks later, the Health Minister, Manel Balcellstalking about the future addiction law prepared by the Government, stated that the new norm could allow the use of mobile phones to be regulated in schools and institutes. “Eating behavior problems are closely linked to screens and the aesthetic pressure that networks entail. This translates to the fact that our youth are entering into many mental health issues, even tripling the suicide attempts“he added Balsells.
And the October 5th, two weeks later – already in full debate-, in an interview with Gemma Nierga, Simó announced a debate in all high schools in Catalonia about mobile phones in classrooms. “Before the end of this year all the institutes will have had a debate on the use of mobile phones in the centers. We already have the data on how each center is regulating the issue. We will analyze them and at the end of October or beginning of November we will start a debate level of territorial councils in which questions such as ‘would you ban cell phones?, ‘why?’, ‘would you regulate them?’, ‘how?'”, Simó detailed that October 5.