Add Category
Updated
Public primary schools will enforce a mobile phone ban from next year as part of the New South Wales Government's plan to reduce online bullying and unnecessary distraction.
Key points:
- High schools can opt in to the ban
- The Government and Opposition support phone use in specific classroom programs
- Submissions highlighted risks of sexting and predatory behaviour from strangers
The change follows an expert review led by child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg and commissioned in June.
The review, which considered about 14,000 survey responses and 80 written submissions, also highlighted cases of students sharing explicit images and predatory behaviour from strangers.
Public high schools will have the choice to opt in when the ban is introduced, or decide to what extent they will allow phones to be used.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said phones presented a new challenge for school communities, which had always contended with distraction and bullying.
"We want to ensure mobile phones and other smart devices complement students' learning, and are handled at school in an age-appropriate way," she said.
"These changes will provide clear boundaries in our schools to ensure technology remains an enabler, not a detractor."
Shadow assistant minister for education David Harris said the Opposition welcomed the move.
"I'm a former primary school principal and I've been chatting to teachers and parents about this issue," he said.
"The use of mobile phones in schools has become disruptive. We certainly support a ban, but the only proviso would be that some schools have mobile phones as part of their 'bring your own device' programs, and in a structured way, in specified lessons, we'd support that continued use of mobile phones in classrooms.
"We would also encourage high schools to look at this very, very carefully."
Education Minister Rob Stokes said many high schools already had strategies in place to deal with mobile phones.
"Sometimes mobile phones can be useful in a secondary school context where they are used to augment learning activities," he said.
"But they can also be dangerous and be a distraction."
He said there will be further "targeted" consultation with high schools because feedback from those was more "mixed and nuanced".
Mr Stokes was not concerned about a backlash from students.
"Many of the comments we've received came from students themselves," he said.
"Students themselves were saying that mobile phones were a distraction to them in class time."
A spokeswoman for Mr Stokes said the review would be made public on Monday.
Dr Carr-Gregg previously flagged the possibility of only allowing older styles of mobile phones which don't have a camera or internet access as another solution.
He said there was an "astonishing" number of young people on apps like Snapchat and Instagram, raising questions about whether those platforms were age-appropriate for younger students.
Topics: internet-technology, information-technology, primary-schools, secondary-schools, public-schools, education, schools, telecommunications, sydney-2000
First posted