‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools

www.theguardian.com ‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools

Major UN report issues warning over excessive use, with one in six countries already banning the devices

‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools::Major UN report issues warning over excessive use, with one in six countries already banning the devices

19 comments

My son always has his phone at school. Given how America is I wouldn't send him to school without a way to get a hold of me.
- The issue is that smartphones have features that are way more interesting than school. Can you send your kid to school with a simple phone that can only make calls and send and receive SMS?
  
  You could, but in reality you should have the parenting ability to trust your kid not to be constantly on their phone in school. If you can't trust your kid to stay off their phone during class and only use it during breaks, lunch, after or before school, etc. Then you've failed as a parent.
And the abuses that have been brought to light because there's a way to do so?
- I would call that a dilemma, I guess.
I used a PalmOS device in school to manage my school schedule. So this was my 1st thought:

“Banning mobile phones entirely from school premises would raise some practical concerns, for example for parents wanting to contact their children while travelling between school and home.”

Feature phones still exist. It would be great if the massive stockpiles of prematurely discarded dumbphones could be recycled to students. Maybe bring back offline PalmOS types of things for scheduling.

“…Some pupils will also use phones as payment methods on public transport.”*

Easily solved: smartphones go into the locker at the start of the day. Also, bring back the ability to pay cash on the public transport vehicle -- this will help push back on the #warOnCash. We could also say there’s a systemic inefficiency if students don’t have season passes on public transport.
- Putting lots of Smartphones into lockers will probably lead to even more lockers being broken into... those things aren`t exactly safes. Also, not every school everywhere actually has lockers.
  
  I would bet it’s a slim enough minority of students who pay public transport on a per-trip basis that theft would not be from arbitrary break ins. A student would have to (recklessly?) use a high-end phone for this & be spotted putting an uncovered phone in the locker.
  
  The best security is a good insurance policy. Not sure if high-end phones tend to have an insurance policy because I avoid them myself.
- lol.. I see that the Facebook-addicted kids are down-voting me :) Probably as they sit in a boring class!
I’m a high schooler and I’m totally down for this

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